


Love is the Death of Duty

by winterkill



Series: Love is the Death of Duty [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Bisexual Jon Snow, F/M, Getting Back Together, Jaime Lannister's little spoon energy, Jon Snow is a Targaryen, Jon and Jaime playing hot potato with power and authority, King Jaime Lannister, M/M, Minor Sansa Stark/Margaery Tyrell, Mutual Pining, Post - A Dance With Dragons, Sansa Stark is Queen in the North, Smut, Vague Endgame, and absolutely HATES it, book canon, one-sided Jon Snow/Jaime Lannister
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-07
Updated: 2020-03-01
Packaged: 2021-02-17 23:21:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 50,867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21701371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/winterkill/pseuds/winterkill
Summary: “Fine,” Jon agrees, “I’ll lend you my counsel, such that it is.”Jaime laughs again, and it echoes in the empty, broken hall. “Fucking perfect. We can hate this together.”Jaime and Jon team up to reluctantly rule Westeros. Brienne, back on Tarth, tries to rebuild her home. Jaime and Brienne pine for each other from afar. Meanwhile, Jon definitely,absolutelyisn't feeling anything other than respect for his king.
Relationships: Jaime Lannister & Jon Snow, Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth, Satin Flowers/Jon Snow
Series: Love is the Death of Duty [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1687402
Comments: 671
Kudos: 758





	1. Jaime I

**Author's Note:**

> I am too excited about this fic not to post it! I have three chapters done, and might not have enough backlog to promise weekly posting, but I will try. I have quite a Christmas break, so I should have time to write.
> 
> This is the most strict book canon I've attempted, but don't expect a comprehensive endgame for all of GRRM's plotlines. I don't have the talent or the interest to manage something that sprawling. For the purposes of this fic, Fake!Aegon and Daenerys explode one another and half of King's Landing. Jon kills the Night King. Cersei is very dead, as are Tommen and Myrcella. Sansa is Queen in the North. I don't know, or care, what happened to Stannis. I have pulled bits from the show that I hope and/or wish would happen, like Jaime knighting Brienne, and Sansa being queen.
> 
> I won't even pretend: the point of this fic is soft Jaime and Brienne pining, Jon and Jaime playing hot potato with power and authority, and Jon Snow being a bisexual disaster. This is set to be twelve chapters, and rotate POVs between Jaime, Jon, and Brienne.
> 
> Title comes from a line Maester Aemon says to Jon at Castle Black.

The Red Keep is a shell of its former glory. The throne room bears the brunt of the damage--half the ceiling is caved in, letting in things that definitely shouldn’t be there--ash, and snow, and Jaime Lannister.

“I thought I’d not live to see this room again,” Jaime muses, more to himself than the man--the _boy_ , really--beside him. “I sat on that chair once,” he gestures with his left hand to the empty iron throne, “I’ve been Kingsguard, Lord Commander, a prisoner--all of it _here_.” 

“Apparently, living through what others expect should kill us is a shared talent.”

Jaime laughs, dry and humorless, “I admit surprise that I still draw breath, but I’ve not _literally_ died, so you’ve the victory there.”

When Jaime looks to him, Jon Snow--no, _Targaryen,_ is sullen under his dark brows, gray eyes fixed on the throne, just as Jaime’s had been moments ago.

“I didn’t ask to be brought back,” Jon responds, “but we get little of what we ask for in life.”

Jaime thinks of Brienne, guarding him from death as captives in the Riverlands, guarding him from death at Winterfell, from wights, or the vengeance of the Starks. He thinks of the wench, back on her island by now, and laughs a little more genuinely. _Go home_ , he’d told her, _you have one to return to._

“I just wanted to swing a sword and hear songs about my glory.”

Jon doesn't laugh--Jaime isn’t sure he’s _ever_ heard Jon laugh, in Winterfell, or in King’s Landing. “Glory,” he repeats, “I’m not even sure what that is anymore.”

“Nothing I once thought it was.”

In truth, Jaime feels a kinship with Ned Stark’s not-bastard--the lad knows the price of an oath sworn and broken, a duty that chokes like a noose. 

The throne sits empty; a problem that needs rectified, and swiftly. Jaime feels surrounded by children--Starks, Tyrells, Robert’s blacksmith bastard. _None of my own_. Addam Marband and Davos Seaworth feel like the only adults left in King’s Landing some days.

And neither of _them_ are going to sit on the Iron Throne.

“It looks uncomfortable,” Jon gestures to the throne, it’s melding of swords illuminated by a shaft of sunlight through the hole in the roof.

Aerys flashes through Jaime’s mind, blood dripping from his hands and arms where the blades bit into his skin. Blood dripping from his throat where Jaime slit it with his sword, pooling out onto the floor of the raised dias where the throne sat.

“It’s power,” Jaime answers, “Power and comfort aren’t bedfellows. Do you know what happens when men grow comfortable with power?”

“Cruelty,” Jon answers, scowling even deeper, “Hubris. Corruption.”

“Insanity,” Jaime adds, “by your lineage.”

“I’m a Stark,” Jon responds, clipped. Ironically, _not_ being Ned’s bastard made him _more_ a Stark. “Westeros needs a ruler, even if we abandon bloodline succession. Sansa says we’re the only choices, and Bran wouldn’t tell me which would come to pass.”

Jaime wants to respond _what does Sansa Stark know? She’s but a girl_. And Bran is cryptic, and seems to find humor in it. If Jaime discounted the advice of his juniors, though, he would be--

“It should be you,” Jaime doesn’t know if he means that, or if he just means that it shouldn’t be him. _Power._ The one thing he’d spent his whole life resisting having foisted upon him. He should’ve begged Brienne to take him with her to Tarth.

 _Duty_ , she would tell him.

“A bastard?” Jon scoffs, “King of Westeros?”

“A Targaryen **,”** Jaime corrects, “Your right, by blood.”

“Didn’t we decide blood _wasn’t_ the best way?” Jon argues. “And besides, the line was broken by King Robert’s rebellion, by _you_.”

“So you’re nominating the Kingslayer?”

“Better than a lad from the Night’s Watch, killed by his sworn brothers.”

“A Lord Commander, though. A title we share, and a fondness for swearing binding oaths of celibacy.”

Jon huffs, “It seemed fine at the time.”

“It did,” Jaime agrees, “If I wanted to rule; I’d have kept my ass in the chair twenty years ago, and saved us _a lot_ of fucking trouble.”

_Would I have done so, had I been able to predict this moment?_

“It can’t be me,” Jon says.

Jaime wants to blurt the same objection; there’s a dreadful certainty in the pit of his stomach, a voice that sounds suspiciously like Brienne telling him _think of the good you could do_.

“Be my Hand,” Jaime hears himself say, like his body has been possessed by a spirit that’s out to make his life the seven hells. “I’m short one, as you surely know.”

“We _all_ know.”

“I must jest, or I’ll go mad.” 

It’s not Jaime’s fault Jon has no sense of humor.

“Fine,” Jon agrees, “I’ll lend you my counsel, such that it is.”

Jaime laughs again, and it echoes in the empty, broken hall. “Fucking _perfect_. We can hate this together.”

“When I was a boy,” Jon blurts, almost looks taken aback for having spoken, “And you came to Winterfell, I thought you looked like a king.”

“ _Gods_ ,” Jaime laughs harder, and, like most moments in the last few years, there’s _nothing_ funny to inspire it. “I was a different man then.”

Now, Jon looks thoughtful, “Were you?”

 _He sounds like Brienne_. Saying that Jaime’s honor was always there, just buried. Now, though, he’s graying, nearly forty, and down a swordhand. Jon was thinking of an image of the past--a golden lion who died long ago.

“And what do you think now, Jon Snow?”

Jon doesn’t react to Jaime addressing him technically incorrectly. Instead, he looks at Jaime for a long, long moment, and replies, “The same.”

* * *

Jaime's first act as king is to rip the iron throne off its dais. Jon stands next to him as it happens, watches the fact that the throne is too heavy for five men to move even an inch.

"You know it hasn't moved in hundreds of years, right? How many men have fought and died to put their ass in that seat? And you’re just...moving it."

Jaime Lannister, first of his name, King of the Six Kingdoms, nods. "A man can't be good and sit in that chair. I'm not even a good man, and I know that."

He's seen too many men, and some children, in that chair--Aerys, Robert, Joffrey, Tommen. Only Tommen was _good_ , and he'd been a puppet for Cersei. The rest were cruel or stupid. And, despite what his father might have said, Jaime wasn't stupid. And he knows he's not cruel--Brienne convinced him.

"So, you're going to…?"

"Melt it down. Toss in in the sea. What does it matter?" 

Jon huffs again; two weeks as Hand have made the boy impertinent. "Because they won't be able to move it twice. Hells, they might not be able to move it _once._ Wherever you want to send it, you should choose now."

"You're so practical," Jaime accuses.

"If only we had a dragon to melt it down," Jon replies dryly.

In the end, it's a combination of melting and dragging that removes the cursed chair from the throne room. They wheel in a cart, an easy feat since the one wall is entirely demolished, and take the throne out in sections. It’s the only sight that filled Jaime with any good humor since he arrived to find King’s Landing still smouldering.

When the monstrosity is gone from the throne room, one of the workers asks, “What should we do with it, King Jaime?”

Jaime freezes because he doesn’t want to be addressed that way. He doesn’t want to be King, or Kingslayer, or even _ser_ or _lord._ He wants to be Jaime, and what he really wants is for Brienne to be next to him, to hear her say his name in those dozen different ways of hers. She could even be cross and exasperated--he’d welcome that.

“See if we can use the metal for any reconstruction purposes.”

Jon’s voice pulls Jaime from his memories, and he looks to his Hand. “Thank you; that’s a sound plan.”

“Have you considered where you’re going to sit?”

“Let’s revisit that for when the Red Keep has four walls and a ceiling again.”

“And when the people have food, water, and shelter.”

* * *

It seems that no matter what chair Jaime occupies, Small Council meetings are equally tedious. 

_Of all the rooms in this fucking keep to remain whole._

Jaime rests his chin on the stump of his right arm, and listens to Jon detail out, better than he ever could, areas of the city that need attention first. He unfurls a map of King’s Landing on the ancient table. Jon does work like a man burdened by the incompetence of his peers.

“Flea Bottom and the Street of Flour are rubble,” Jon points at the corresponding locations on the man. “The Dragon Gate is indefensible at this point.”

“Ah, but who’s left to attack it?”

The entire hodgepodge Small Council in attendance--Addam Marbrand, Davos Seaworth, and Jon’s portly maester friend Samwell Tarly--all look at Jaime.

“What? Find me one house that has enough men left to rally _any_ kind of a force.”

“We did a lovely, thorough, job of killing one another,” Ser Davos chimes in.

“There’s health concerns, too,” Tarly says, unfurling a scroll and reading from it, “Everything’s run-of-the-mill--infection, malnourishment, cholera, dysentery.”

“People are setting up camps outside the walls,” Addam says, “We took stock of the situation during yesterday’s patrol.”

“Hungry people turn violent,” Jaime says.

“Scared people, too,” Ser Davos adds. “And the people from Flea Bottom, _wherever_ they are now, want to hate the rich, and the powerful, who push them down.”

 _This_ is what Jaime loathes--there’s too many problems coming at him at once, flanking him and outnumbering him. With a blade, he could cut them down, but no sword can stop the spread of disease and famine. A soldier can’t solve these problems, and a soldier is all Jaime is, no matter how many useless titles get tossed before his name. 

“The wealth of King’s Landing is built on the backs of the smallfolk,” Jaime doesn’t have a plan, but he starts talking regardless. It’s worked before, and they’re all _looking_ at him, like he’s should have the answer. The jest is on them, though, because he _definitely_ doesn’t. “For now, shouldn’t we prioritize meeting people’s basic needs? We need all the help we can muster for reconstruction, and the able-bodied smallfolk will be useless if they’re hungry and infirmed.”

“So we feed them, shelter them,” Jon continues, “all noble things that require resources.”

“Of which we have...mayhaps less than an ideal amount.” Tywin is laughing from the grave at every lesson about the administrative aspects of lordship Jaime steadfastly ignored during his youth. He’d never be lord of Casterly Rock, yet _this_ was infinitely worse. 

“Let’s assess what we have, and what we can spare,” Jon continues, “There’s a ledger, but you made off with it.”

Jaime is beginning to think that Jon’s agreement portends good things--Jon has _sense_ , much more than Jaime had at, what, eighteen? “Just a little light reading before bed.” He’d fallen sleep with an inventory of grain in the Red Keep’s stores on the pillow next to him; it was _definitely_ a lonely moment.

Jon just raises his eyebrows judgmentally in a way that reminds Jaime of Sansa Stark, and, in turn, Catelyn. _Does Jon know he does that?_

“We should also see what we can _buy_ ,” Jaime finishes, “I’ll write to Tyrion, and Highgarden; they’ve money, and resources.” 

Jaime can't help but think there’s some justice in using the Lannister fortune to help the smallfolk. His relationship with Tyrion is still strained, but his brother won’t refuse his request for aid--rather it be seen as from Jaime himself, or from the crown.

“This is fine long-term, but food and money take time, but people can’t wait,” Ser Davos looks at the map spread across the table, “The situation out there is tense.”

Addam nods, “We noticed agitation while on patrol yesterday.”

 _Patrol_ was a strong word to describe what Addam did; it amounted to him, Loras Tyrell, and some still-breathing City Watch officers trying to navigate their horses over piles of rubble. Addam had given Jaime quite a look when he’d asked him to be Lord Commander of the Kingsguard; Jaime placated him re-writing the vows to something that wouldn’t result in the fucking dregs of Westeros protecting the kingdom.

“We won’t be useful if _we’re_ starving. Although some amongst the smallfolk might prefer that,” Jaime sits up a bit in is chair, remembers giving orders at Winterfell, to his men in the Riverlands. _This is just another battlefield, isn’t it?_ “But give out what we can spare; find some way to be orderly about it, though.”

And Jon makes a good Hand because Jaime isn’t worried, even a bit, about the minutiae of the order.

* * *

A year spent sitting in his own shit in Riverrun's dungeons was the first death knell for Jaime's vanity. He remembers staring at his reflection in the water as Brienne paddled them down the river. Poor, ill-fated cousin Cleos shaved his head; Jaime stared, transfixed and in horror, at his gaunt face and bald head.

Brienne never tired as she rowed, and he kept thinking _what a beast of a woman, to row day and night without rest._ She'd impressed him--an utter fool he'd been, to not notice what _that_ meant, after a lifetime focused so acutely on his twin.

Then, Brienne _continued_ to impress, so much so that to desire her felt like a sin. 

The loss of his hand killed the last of his hubris--weeks spent weeping into Brienne's shoulder in blinding pain, with her cleaning up his shit and piss and vomit were _remarkably_ effective.

The experience, and the loss of his swordhand, shattered being Cersei's mirror, and that, if nothing else, was a boon.

That, and the discovery of the fierce gentleness found in Brienne.

And _gods_ , he'd never admit it to anyone, but he _misses_ her--from her eyes he wants to drown in, to her glower when she thinks, _knows_ , he's been a fool. To miss fucking Winterfell, cold-as-balls and drowning in Starks and wights, because Brienne was there, sharing his space.

 _Tonight will be the night I die_ , he thought after each day. He'd be a fraction too slow, too unskilled, with Widow's Wail, and would meet his end. He'd seen dozens, _hundreds_ , of men die, and none had been heroic.

"There's no glory in death," he told Brienne one night, during a futile attempt to wipe mud and blood off his skin. "Even a brave man, or a man who doesn't believe in the Seven, fears to meet the Stranger as he shits himself."

Brienne graced him with one of her smiles, so rare he could count them on his remaining fingers. Then, she'd wiped at a smear of mud on his brow with a cloth that could barely be considered clean.

"The glory lives on through songs." And Jaime knew she still believed in that, even after Lady Stoneheart, and all they'd seen. "And through the people you protected."

“And who have I protected?” _Not my family; not my children_.

“M-me,” she’d blushed, then, barely visible in the firelight, “Lady Sansa. The people of King’s Landing. The people _here_.”

If, _when_ , Jaime finally died, and if the Seven exist, and he got to tell them what the fuck he thought of their bullshit, he wanted his last thought to be that he'd protected Brienne. Even if it meant shielding her with his mortal form.

Then, Brienne kissed him, the only heat in a fucking frigid wasteland, and they spoke no more of songs or glory.

* * *

Sometimes, Jaime lets Addam Marbrand strike at him with a blunted training sword. And, sometimes, he’s able to hit him in return.

“Like when were boys at Casterly Rock,” Addam says, jovial, as he leaves Jaime bruised and sore.

“Only then I was without the massive handicap,” Jaime replied in the same tone, although he doesn’t feel it. 

Addam was the first person he’d fought with his left hand. Then Illyn Payne, then Brienne. The first two occurred under the cover of night--a bid to hide his diminished skill at a time where he’d thought there was nothing else left to him. He’d felt relief and shame that his sword wasn’t why he’d been sent from King’s Landing.

Only Brienne drew him out into the daylight--a courtyard at Winterfell on rare afternoons when the sun would shine. 

“You’re improved,” Addam says as Jaime sidesteps his strike.

 _At dodging_. Brienne told him his body would remember the movements. She instructed him in the same manner and tone as she did with Pod; it revealed to him why the boy was so fond of Brienne, not that Jaime didn't already know.

“I had a good instructor.”

“The girl from Tarth,” Addam replies.

“Brienne,” Jaime answers; even though Addam hadn’t insult Brienne, saying her name feel like maybe on Tarth, she will look west and _know_. “And I’m as good as I’ll be, I think.”

“A king in peacetime doesn’t need a sword,” Addam replies, and even though he’s right, and it’s a _good_ thing, something about it feels like a loss. 

“She has skill?”

“Yes,” Jaime replies, “but more than that, she has patience.”

Addam laughs, “Needed, to deal with you.”

They go back and forth like that, with Jaime dodging more effectively than striking, compensating for the reduced precision in his left hand by fighting more defensively. There’s no clear winner, but like Brienne, Addam doesn’t pity him by pulling his strikes, and the end result is satisfying enough. 

“Would you be interested in some advice from your Lord Commander?” Addam asks at the end, passing Jaime his waterskine. 

“I’d like advice from anyone who gives it well,” Jaime answers.

“Come with us tomorrow,” he suggests, “We’ll guard your back, and you can wear that Valyrian steel sword of yours. Introduce yourself beyond being the Kingslayer. They only know shit kings, and men like your father.”

“Who you served.”

“That didn’t make him a good man. Ingratiate yourself to them; be your charming self.”

Jaime snorts, “My charming self is a bit of a jackass.”

“Just pick up some babes and kiss their heads. The women will swoon, and you’ll be the most popular king in a century.”

 _A low bar_. 

He follows Addam’s plan at least once a sennight, and kisses the forehead of every babe he’s allowed. He asks people questions, and forces Ser Loras to take notes. He tells every group he meets about all the things he’s trying to do--better access to food, infrastructure repairs, a non-corrupt City Watch, better trade agreements--anything he can think of.

And, after a few months, it _actually_ starts working.

* * *

Six months pass so quickly that the days blur together into one mass trying to feed and house people, trying to reestablish diplomatic and trade alliances.

“We’re doing well,” Jon tells him every few weeks; his Hand must be developing a sixth sense for panicked feeling that overcomes him at the oddest of moments. 

"Are we?" Jaime always asks in return; the question comes out wry each time. "If so, it's certainly a collaborative effort."

"You've the disposition," Jon replies in his typical sullen fashion. Jaime's made him laugh, though, and he's lost track of the number of times. More than he can count, certainly.

"Do you mean I can make speeches and kiss babes?"

"I mean you're personable, and charismatic, and the smallfolk _like_ you." 

_Somehow,_ the truth of Aerys and the wildfire spread through the smallfolk since Jaime's coronation. Those old enough to remember the Mad King's reign suddenly found a new appreciation for the Kingslayer. Jaime _suspects_ Addam leaked it, but he has no proof given that he'd told his entire Small Council. 

"Be careful, Snow, or I'll think you're trying to woo me with your flattery."

Jon reddens, just a bit, and embarrassing him is _nearly_ as satisfying as it was with Brienne.

* * *

He writes Brienne once a month, and doesn't send any of them, even after nearly a year. She doesn't write him, and Jaime isn't surprised by that.

By the time Jaime orders his thoughts, and writes the sentences in his awful, left-handed block letters, each time he realizes he's said nothing at all, or asked her for things that seem wildly unfair.

_Come here and stay, wench; I miss your glares and insults something fierce._

or

_How is the weather on Tarth?_

or 

_We could use some marble from your mines._

And, once, deep in his cups, Jaime falls asleep at his desk after writing something so maudlin and explicit that he's quite embarrassed to wake to find Jon reading it the next morning.

"You missed our meeting," his Hand chides.

"Don't read that!" Jaime sits up too quickly, and realizes he can't turn his head in Jon's direction without a sharp pain. _Age is so cruel_. How did he sleep on the ground for _months?_

"You're...not a poet," Jon says, slowly, still gripping the parchment, "And this looks like it was penned by a boy of six with, um, _wisdom_ beyond his years."

"How about I chop off your dominant hand, and you try writing a letter?" Jaime snaps.

"No thank you," Jon replies, still staring at the letter. "Is this how you usually write Lady Brienne?"

Jaime rips it out of his hand and crumples it up. "I _don't_ write her," he snaps, again, "I write different versions of the same shit once a moon and burn it."

Jon studies him for a moment with an expression that Jaime thinks looks suspiciously like pity.

"You miss her?"

Jaime doesn't answer.

"You could...summon her," Jon tries, "In a royal capacity."

"Isn't that an abuse of my authority?"

"Maybe, but it's been nearly a year. It wouldn't be remiss to hold a summit of sorts. Just ask her instead of Lord Selwyn to attend."

"You're the _best_ Hand," Jaime replies. "We can summon Sansa and Arya, too, if you want to see your sisters."

"I do," Jon admits, "It's the only thing I hate about being here."

"Can you write the letters?"

Jon gives him the barest hint of a smile, "You write to Lady Brienne. Just…don't say what you said there."

"I command you to forget that."


	2. Jon I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Jaime clearly doesn't believe in his own capacity to rule, but it doesn't take long for Jon to confirm the correctness in the choice._
> 
> _Perhaps a good king doesn't think he's one._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am FLOORED at the response this got. I had no idea bisexual disaster Jon Snow and King Jaime was a niche that needed filled. Thank you so much!
> 
> Each three chapters of this fic (one POV chapter per character) overlap in when they take place. There's not much duplication in terms of scenes, but there is reflection on events from the differing perspectives. I've never written Jon this closely before, so I hope he's okay. 
> 
> There, so, SO much pining!

When it's down to the two of them staring at the ruins of the vacant throne room, the choice is obvious to Jon.

"It can't be me," he says when Jaime suggests it; the manifold excuses spring into Jon's mind in rapid succession.

 _The last time I took a position of authority, I died for it_. Jon can still feel the sharp pain of every blade that stabbed him, recall the faces of every one of his sworn brothers who betrayed him. He remembers life leeching out of him, bleeding into the snow, and the blackness of death that followed.

 _I can't do that again_.

He's young, too, too young to be Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, for all the title was foisted on him. Jaime has two decades on him, which is twice the life experience. 

He's been a bastard his whole life, and now that he _isn't_ one, he's a Targaryen, a fact he still struggles to reconcile. Another Targaryen isn't what Westeros needs.

 _The next time we meet, I will tell you of your mother_ , his father--uncle told him, only they never saw one another again, and Bran ended up revealing the truth of his parentage. Ned Stark would _always_ be Jon's father, bloodlines be damned.

Jaime doesn't actively agree, but he _does_ ask Jon to be his Hand; a tacit acceptance, and a request Jon can't refuse. There's a need to be filled, and Jon thinks he can do that much. Jaime stands there, arms crossed and scowling at the throne like he resents its imposition already.

“When I was a boy,” Jon blurts and regrets it immediately, “And you came to Winterfell, I thought you looked like a king.”

Jon stared at Jaime long enough in Winterfell's courtyard that Robb elbowed him in the side, _hard_ , and asked if he wanted to go ask the Kingslayer for a kiss. 

"Maybe he'll crown you his Queen of Love and Beauty, like they do a tourneys in the south," Theon had joined in, laughing with Robb. 

"You're pretty enough," Robb continued, ruffling Jon's hair, "But rumor has it the Kingslayer fucks the queen."

They'd seen Queen Cersei exit the carriage, golden and resplendent, like she was appearing in court when she should be covered in weeks of road dust. Jon hadn't believed Robb. He knew the truth of it now; Bran paid for that truth. Although, when Jon asked if Bran hated Jaime, his brother only replied, _it was what was meant to be._

"He's good with a sword," Jon tried to defend against their teasing, "The best, right?"

Theon snorted like a pig, "I bet you'd like to know."

Jon hated both of them for it, wanted to strike them with his sword to hide his embarrassment at both his staring at Jaime Lannister, _and_ their noticing. Now, though, when their voices and faces exist only in his memory, Jon would give anything to hear their innocent teasing in the last moments before everything was ripped apart.

* * *

Jaime clearly doesn't believe in his own capacity to rule, but it doesn't take long for Jon to confirm the correctness in the choice. 

_Perhaps a good king doesn't think he's one_.

There's a deep uncertainty in Jaime. The man Jon first saw in Winterfell, and saw again when defending the keep from wights, doesn't exist behind closed doors. Jon had been amazed, again, at Winterfell, that Jaime held the same presence, the same charisma and defiance he'd admired as a boy.

_How does a man carry himself like that, robbed of the glory of his swordhand, stripped of his Kingsguard rank?_

Lord Commander Mormont once told Jon he was observant. Jon’s not sure it’s true--not when he missed the signs that his own men were planning a mutiny. He watches the king, though, and the answer is that Jaime Lannister _doesn't_ have the confidence he projects. He's held together with artifice and reckless bravado. 

The man can rally men, better than Jon thinks he can, but thinks himself utterly incapable at anything administrative. He reads at the pace of a boy, and has the handwriting to match. Yet, Jaime pours over every missive and report that crosses his desk, sometimes late into the night. The only assistance he asks for is to delegate a task, either to Jon or to another member of the _extremely_ small Small Council.

"The Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, and the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard must not share many duties," Jaime tells him one night some weeks after they embark on their hellish journey of responsibility.

Jon is looking at crop yields and ledgers City Watch recruits, "I was Jeor Mormont's steward, before he was killed. I thought he was punishing me for making me do so many things that didn't involve a sword."

"He was grooming you for command,” Jaime laughs. “That always felt like punishment to me, too."

"Did Lord Tywin make you study?" 

"For _hours_ \--torture when you're a lad only interested in swords and horses."

"Wished you'd listened?" Jon gestures to the pile of papers on the desk.

"No. It was better to let him know what I didn't want."

“Spite."

Jaime laughs again, booming in the silence of the room, “Most people don’t assume I’d keep faith. All the people I’d wish to spite are dead, but there is a certain pleasure in picking what people don’t expect of you.”

“Is _that_ why you’re doing this?” 

“It’s the opposite, now; there’s someone I want to prove right.”

* * *

Little Sam is riding Ghost through the long stone corridor outside the Maester’s infirmary. The pair burst through the infirmary door ahead of Jon, nearly tripping him on an uneven patch of stone.

Jon’s heard stories of this part of the Keep from Jaime, about Qyburn reanimating corpses, namely one Gregor Clegane, on Cersei’s orders. He doesn’t like to ponder that there’s more than one way to bring back the dead; he can think of _three_ now, and wishes he hadn’t been part of _any_ of them.

The only one that seemed to _work_ , truly--at least he wasn’t a mindless wall of reanimated flesh or a wight.

The Maester’s chambers are bright, tended to by Gilly and Sam, and filled with people in varying stages of recovery. People are still dying, Jon knows, and it weighs on Sam’s shoulders. 

Today, Jon has a stack of reports from various infrastructure projects occurring all around King’s Landing that he places, with a dull _thunk_ on one of the worktables Sam keeps down the center of the room.

“Are those for me?” He doesn’t turn to look; Jon has dropped enough piles of documents onto these tables in the last three months that Sam knows the sound. 

“You have my preemptive apology.”

Sam turns, pulling off his gloves and dropping them on the table. Even as winter still holds King’s Landing in the last vestiges of its grip, the Southern climes suit Sam infinitely more than being at the Wall or Winterfell. He smiles more, and his complexion is better. Gilly complains about the heat, and Sam looks at her like she’s mad. 

“I don’t mislike reading reports,” Sam takes the first one off the stack, “They tell us how we’re faring.”

“The repair on the aqueducts is proceeding,” Jon says, “Access to clean water has improved significantly.”

Sam nods, “There’s less sickness, too--the common things caused by poor living conditions, at least.”

“Lord Commander Marbrand says morale amongst the people has improved, too.”

Sam looks like he’s about to speak when _little_ Sam, now off Ghost, barrels back into the door and latches onto his father’s legs. He lets out an _oomph_ and ruffles the boy’s hair. 

“I’m busy with Uncle Jon,” he tells the boy, “why don’t you go bother your mother? I think she’s in the storeroom, sorting things.”

“I wanna ride Ghost again later,” little Sam looks up at Jon, “May I?”

 _As though he asked the first time._ Jon waves both his hands, “Ask Ghost; I don’t command the direwolf.”

“Go,” Sam repeats, shooing the boy in the apparent direction of Gilly. Then, he clears the clutter off the table and spreads out the papers Jon brought. “I surmise _this_ is our afternoon?”

“The king can’t sort through _all_ of this; we should pick what needs his attention and handle the rest ourselves. We can address the high points at the next Small Council meeting.”

They work in relative silence after after that, speaking only when needed to confirm the importance of something. Jon finds the reports heartening--their efforts to source food and resources from outside the city walls are proving effective. Jaime’s emptying of the castle stores didn’t go unnoticed by the smallfolk, improving his reputation. Much of the city is still in varying states of rubble, but the repair on the Dragon Gate is progressing apace. The City Watch, or what’s left of it, is doing as much as is feasible to keep crime down.

Sam hums to himself as he reads and makes notes of what’s important.

“We need more building materials,” Jon comments halfway through the latest inventory from the stonemasons. Unless we want people to live in tents for the foreseeable future.”

“We’ll broach the topic tomorrow,” Sam replies, “Unless you want to go see King Jaime _now_.”

When Jon looks up, Sam is smiling blithely.

“ _What?”_

“Nothing,” Sam shrugs, the links on his maester’s chain clanking as he does, “Just that you usually don’t wait until our meetings to bother him.”

“I’m his Hand,” Jon replies, a terseness in his tone that he tries to disperse before continuing, “What are my duties if not to make his job easier?”

“To let him order you around, doing the things he thinks are beneath him.”

Jon feels oddly offended on Jaime’s behalf, “He’s not like that.”

Sam laughs this time, “He isn’t, is he? And he doesn’t seem to be bothered if we tell him we know better than he does.”

Jon nods, a warmth and admiration growing within him; Jaime doesn’t just _look_ the part of a king, he acts it, too. He appoints people he trusts, and listens when they give him counsel. It makes Jon want to ease his burden, and filtering work before Jaime sees it is the only way he knows how. He looks at the patch of sunlight moving across the floor--at this hour, Jaime could be smacking Lord Commander Marband with a practice sword, or he could be taking a nap. 

“I just want to do my job well.”

The look Sam gives him is a bit too _knowing_ , “Is that all?”

“I regret _ever_ telling you that,” Jon picks up a stack of papers and holds them at eye level. Sam told him all the horrible things Randyll Tarly did to him as a child, and Jon rewarded him with the story of Robb and Theon’s teasing. It made them laugh as they froze next to a brazier atop the Wall on watch. Jon thought he’d be in the Night’s Watch until the end of his days, and the object of his brief boyhood fixation would never cross his path again.

Like everything else, that _also_ hadn’t gone as Jon planned.

“But it’s true, still?”

 _Yes_. Worse, mayhaps, because he _knows_ what lies beyond hero-worship, beyond admiration for glory earned while holding a sword, what happens when glamor fades, and the hard decisions that await beyond it.

Jon knows, too, that the touch of another man isn’t unwelcome; he thinks of Satin, and the taste of the mulled wine Jon requested he stay and share with him. Satin kissing him was a surprise, but when it happened, something about it made sense.

“You keep your oaths better than most of the men here,” Satin, drunk on wine, told him as he leaned closer.

“I’ve broken one of them,” Jon replied.

“ _Ah_ ,” Satin replied, “can I guess which one?”

“Yes.”

And Satin kissed him, lithe form pressed against Jon’s where he sat next to him on the Lord Commander’s bed. Satin tasted like the spices from the mulled wine, and smelled like the sweet scent he combed into his beard. It was _nothing_ like Ygritte, yet everything like her, because by the end of the evening, Jon Snow, once again, learned that he knew _nothing_.

Sam is staring at him, now, and Jon shakes is head, embarrassed at letting his mind wander.

“Ser Jaime is a good king,” Jon says a moment later, focusing on the task at hand. “who needs our help to make a better Westeros.”

“Riiiiiight.”

* * *

Somehow, Jaime gets Jon to sit with him, sometimes even forces a goblet of wine into his hand. There’s not a lot of _good_ wine left in the Red Keep.

“My sweet sister drank it all during her tenure here.”

Jon doesn’t know if he’s supposed to laugh, so he doesn’t; Jaime chuckles to himself, seemingly unconcerned that Jon doesn’t join in.

“The Wall wasn’t exactly a Dornish vineyard,” he replies, “So I can suffer anything.”

“Spoken like a true Northerner,” Jaime sips from the goblet in his left hand. “How long have we been at this?”

“Five moons.”

“ _Gods_. It feels like a lifetime. We need to become better acquainted--tell me about the girl.”

Jon blanks completely, “The...girl?”

“You broke your oath,” Jaime repeats, “I assume it was for a girl.”

_Ygritte._

There’s a place in Jon’s heart that aches for her, dulled with the passing of time, but easily rekindled. His image of her is clearest of anyone he’s lost, from the fire-kissed red of her hair to the way her bony knees would dig into his legs when she crawled under the furs with him, or the look in her eyes when she shot an arrow.

“Her name was Ygritte,” Jon tries to recall when he last said her name aloud, “A Wildling girl, a bit older than me.”

Jaime nods, silently bidding Jon to continue.

“I pretended to defect, to learn where Mance Rayder, the King-Beyond-the-Wall made his camp, killed one of my sworn brothers to prove myself. We traveled together, after; Ygritte was...persuasive.”

“Many women are persuasive,” Jaime takes a drink of wine, smiling around the goblet, “Jon Snow doesn’t strike me as a man who breaks an oath for any woman who opens her legs.”

Jaime must know that feeling, too--how many dozens of women had thrown themselves at him over the decades? How many times had he faced breaking that same oath? He’s smirking, now, waiting for Jon to answer. Even now, with gray mingling with gold in the king’s hair, and lines at the corners of his eyes, Jon’s reaction to Jaime is unchanged as when he was a green boy at Winterfell.

 _You’re smitten with him_ , Sam said; Jon wanted to melt into the floor with the truth, and the shame of it, confronted with Jaime’s piercing, green-eyed stare and knowing smile.

“I’d never met a girl like her,” Jon tries to sound as even as possible, “She liked to tell me I knew nothing, and she was right. At first, I thought refusing her would seem like lingering loyalty to the Night’s Watch. What does a turncloak need with an oath?”

“ _Ah_ , but one time turns into two, and then three, and then--” Jaime makes a vague gesture with his right arm. “What’s an oath, in the face of _that_?”

“That’s...exactly how it happened,” Jon stares into the dark red liquid in his cup; it’s better than looking up, and it hides his expression, even from himself. “I stopped caring after a certain point; it was easy to pretend I was to stay with her.”

“She’s dead?”

Jon nods, “Killed when the Wildlings attacked Castle Back; I burned her body, so she wouldn’t---”

Jaime nods, a sharp gesture, “So many nights, I dreamed of...people coming back as wights.”

 _I still dream of it_. That it will be Sansa, or Arya, or Bran, or Rickon. Jon wonders if Jaime is talking about Brienne of Tarth, but he’s not fool enough to ask. Jaime goes to great lengths to talk _around_ Brienne.

“Now, I just dream of the people in Flea Bottom rioting over bread,” Jon deflects; the conversation is cutting too close.

Jaime laughs, but doesn’t let Jon change the trajectory. “At least you meant _that_ part of the oath when you swore it. I let Cersei convince me to break it before I even took it.”

“...How?”

“She came to me in much the same fashion; told me we could be together if I joined the Kingsguard.” Jaime shrugs, “For a newly-knighted boy of fifteen who wanted her, desperately, her plan was sound. And, even if it wasn’t, as you said, by morning I didn’t care.”

“And now she’s dead, too.” Jon wonders, immediately, Hand or not, if he’s overstepped.

“A grave of her own making,” Jaime sounds hard, and distant; Jon knows to back off. “Was this Ygritte an isolated incident, or do we share the chronic breaking of oaths?”

Jon’s had enough wine to reveal something he ought to keep to himself, “No, there was another.”

Jaime tilts his head to the side, curious, “ _Another_ Wildling girl? Does my Hand have a _type?_ ”

“No,” Jon corrects, “One of my brothers in the Night’s Watch.”

He laughs again, more genuinely surprised Jon usually sees, “Tell me _that_ story next time, when we’ve fresh wine.”

For Jaime Lannister, Jon probably will, and he _really_ hates that fact.

* * *

“The king is pining,” Ser Davos tells Jon near the end of a Small Council meeting. Jaime is talking with Lord Commander Marbrand about something in low tones, their heads angled toward one another.

 _Pining?_ Jon wants to ask, wants to know how Ser Davos can _tell._ Is it because he spent so many years watching Stannis Baratheon that he can intuit the whims of his king? No, though--Jon bears witness to Jaime daily, and as time passes, the king wilts like a flower left too long out of the sun. Jon can’t assist with that, not when it’s Ser Brienne of Tarth that Jaime longs for.

“He is,” Jon agrees, crossing his arms, “How do we fix it?”

“We get him to send for his lady love,” Ser Davos replies like it’s the easiest problem that has stared them down in months. “What’s that, compared to riots and famine and shit running through the streets?”

“A fair point,” Jon agrees, “Do you know _how_ to get Ser Brienne of Tarth to come here?”

Jaime performs well, knows the right things to say, even if he doesn’t always choose them. He’s _tired_ , something they all see. More than that, though, Jaime is lonely, and Jon thinks, as his Hand, that he might be the one who sees it closest.

“From what I know of people like her,” Ser Davos holds up his gloved hand, the one hiding the missing fingers, “We frame it as duty.”

“Is that accurate, though?”

Ser Davos shakes his head, “No, but it’s what they need to hear.”

* * *

That Brienne arrives before Sansa, Arya, or anyone else they’d written is a matter of geography. The raven says she will sail from Tarth, and in a fortnight, Brienne arrives on a small ship docked in the newly-repaired harbor.

Jaime doesn’t come to greet her, something Jon thinks is a mistake, but it’s not his place to contradict. Jon meets her instead, waits for her on the dock as she disembarks.

“Ser Brienne,” Jon bows in greeting and Brienne mirrors the gesture, “Welcome back to King’s Landing.

“Thank you,” she doesn’t smile, taciturn as Jon remembers from their time in Winterfell. 

Brienne _does_ look at him for a long, long moment until Jon wonders if he’d attired himself strangely. He feels so _Northern_ sometimes--dark fur and leather, the pin signifying he’s the Hand affixed to the black of his jerkin. The weather warms, but Jon is a Stark.

“You look like a man who’s spent a prolonged amount of time in the company of Jaime Lannister,” she says, finally, before walking ahead of Jon, the azure and rose of her cloak trailing behind her.

 _What the_ fuck _does that mean?_

* * *

The king greets Brienne in a small receiving room, chosen because it has _some_ pomp, and most importantly, contained an intact ceiling. There’s no real throne, just a chair Jaime dragged, one-handed, from the Small Council room down the hall. Jon remembers the screeching scrape of the legs along the floor, and the look in Jaime’s eyes daring one person to offer to help.

No one had.

Jaime sits in the chair backwards, sometimes, to confuse the people he’s hosting. When Brienne enters, though, he looks as proper as he ever has. Back straight, feet on the floor, left hand shielding his right wrist, tucked in his sleeve. Brienne freezes at the opposite end of the room.

_Why?_

Jon, fool that he is, expects romance--for Brienne to run the distance between them, or for Jaime to rise from the chair and go to Brienne, to take her in his arms. Brienne is stony and reticent, and Jaime is a mask of courtesy,

If Ygritte, an impossibility, or Satin, feasible but unlikely, walked through that door, Jon would want to be kissed. If he were Brienne, right now, his world would narrow to that single point of desire.

Instead, Brienne bows until her cloak dusts the stone floor, “Your majesty, Tarth comes to swear its allegiance and provide whatever aid it can.”

Jaime’s mask drops, and he’s vulnerable to the room for the breath before it returns; by the time Brienne rises, she misses the entire shift. 

“Thank you, Ser Brienne. The crown welcomes you.”

* * *

“Is _that_ why you sent her that letter?” Jon nearly yells, hours later, when he’s seen Brienne and her retinue housed in appropriate quarters. “To greet her like a stranger?”

“She greeted _me_ like a stranger,” Jaime turns and looks out the window, over King’s Landing, lit with a greater number of flickering lights than a year past.

“You’re the _king_ ,” Jon waves his hands, “What would you have wished her to do?”

“To get angry,” Jaime replies but doesn’t turn, “To turn her wrath on me, for sending her home, for not--”

_He wants her to be angry?_

“She represents her house; she bent the knee to you,” Jon shakes his head, “You’ll have to break the wall between that.”

Jaime turns, then, looks at Jon like the idea of pursuing Brienne is anathema to him. How could Jaime _not_ be able to woo the object of his desire, though? Jon feels the pull of Jaime’s charisma whenever they’re alone, and certainly, if he _tried_. Jon can’t imagine Brienne of Tarth seducing anyone, though, so maybe he doesn’t understand the way things worked between them at all.

“Brienne should _know_ ,” Jaime sounds like a child, petulant and confused, “We don’t need to speak.”

Suddenly, the problem seems much clearer. “ _Everyone_ needs to speak. Even as--as close as two people can be, we’re all alone in our own minds. Do you _know_ what you want to say to her?”

“Yes, but I don’t know that I’m worthy, and I don’t know if I can.”

“Tell me,” Jon hears his foolish, traitorous voice speak for him, “As long as it’s _not_ the contents of that letter.”

 _That_ doesn’t need to be read aloud.

“At Pennytree, knowing Brienne lied, I was willing to meet death if it’s what she saw fit; I knew the reason I’d follow her,” Jaime takes two long strides to the middle of the room, closer to Jon, “My redemption, my honor, my _life_ was always in her hands.”

“Love." The word sounds strange on his tongue; he never said it to anyone when it mattered. The last words he said to his father, or to Ygritte, certainly weren't that.

From the way Jaime throws himself at everything, he must love dramatically and fervently--no half-measures, even if it wounds him, drains him dry.

“Does my Hand think it’s a bad course of action?”

“Th-that’s beyond my scope of experience.”

Jaime huffs, “I thought we had a rapport.”

“I think,” Jon looks away this time, out the window, “that we’re punished if we squander our chances." 


	3. Brienne I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Her father gives her a tour of the damage Tarth suffered under siege by the Golden Company._
> 
> _Selwyn gestures to the western wall of Evenfall’s keep, where repairs have already begun. “Look. my daughter, at how this ancient wall held,” he pats the marble with his large, weathered hand, like one might pet a loyal hound._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, it's finally time for Brienne's chapter! Thank you, as usual, for all the reviews and kudos. 🥰

Her father gives her a tour of the damage Tarth suffered under siege by the Golden Company.

Selwyn gestures to the western wall of Evenfall’s keep, where repairs have already begun. “Look. my daughter, at how this ancient wall held,” he pats the marble with his large, weathered hand, like one might pet a loyal hound.

Brienne touches the marble, too, palm flat against the sun-warmed stone. _Spring_. Not yet, but _soon_. Her hands are smaller than her father’s, but not by much. She stares at her freckled skin and calluses earned by the sword.

“It did hold, didn’t it?”

Her father smiles, as he had all through her childhood, resolute and comforting, “Long have we stood here; Tarth would not be so easily taken.”

“I regret that I wasn’t here,” Brienne says, so soft that it’s almost masked by the wind coming off Shipbreaker Bay.

“Why?”

“Because Tarth is my home; I ran away to play at being a knight, and missed _all_ this.”

“Who was playing at being a knight?” Selwyn shakes his head in reproach, “You fought to protect innocents and defend the weak.”

Her father’s praise has the same effect as Jaime’s; it makes Brienne want to curl in on herself and deny it. “I only did what was needed,” she replies, “and not all my decisions were honorable.”

She deceived Jaime by leading him to Lady Stoneheart. She gave into despair over not finding Sansa. She killed her liege lady, whom she swore to defend. Jaime telling her “it was the merciful course” didn’t assuage her guilt. 

Brienne couldn’t even avenge Renly in the end.

“Have more faith in yourself,” her father smiles, “We all make hard choices and must live with the outcomes of them.”

“I was a foolish girl, when I left for Storm’s End.” It felt like a lifetime ago that she danced with Renly and was consumed with that futile, maidenly affection. She thinks of Jaime, and her feelings for Renly are a pale shade.

“Foolish or not, you’re my daughter,” her father moves his hand from the marble to touch Brienne’s scarred cheek, “and you’re home.”

She can only nod, a lump in her throat, and turn her attention to the efforts of reconstruction. Like the stone wall of Evenfall’s keep, Brienne knows she will stand and rebuild.

* * *

Brienne’s first few months on Tarth are marked by a minor case of celebrity. 

That her people recognize her isn’t surprising--she’s her father’s heir, and Tarth isn’t exactly a large island. Many remember her departure for Storm’s End, either that she defied her lord father by running away, or that Lord Selwyn had poor control over her and let her loose to be killed or raped or mocked.

People looking isn’t new; Brienne felt the eyes on her worst at Winterfell. Her ruined cheek, her height, and Oathkeeper are all things that make her stand out. Jaime caught her, once, lamenting her blurry reflection in a water pail in the yard. She poked at her cheek, barely able to feel it between the cold and the scar tissue.

 _I’m even uglier than before_.

“Are you preening, wench?” He laughed, bright and carefree, despite the dire circumstances.

She startled, nearly kneeing the water over, and put her back to Jaime to hide her embarrassment. “It’s none of your concern.”

“Have I not earned the right to ask after you?”

“It’s nothing,” she repeated, distant.

“Like it was nothing when it happened?” He knelt next to her, peering at her, “You think it mars your beauty?”

“I never had that, but it doesn’t help.” _Not that there was much help to be had._

Jaime raised his left hand to her cheek, warmth radiating through the hide of his glove, “It shows your bravery.”

Brienne felt she’d never be properly warm again, but Jaime’s touch was a start. “I mislike being gawked at.”

Jaime tilted his head, “Valiant knights are often gawked at, ser.”

“Like you?” she blurted before immediately clamping her mouth shut.

“Not like me at all.”

Brienne was never sure what course to take when Jaime insulted himself; she couldn’t jest back, and could never tell how deeply the words of others wounded him. She stared long enough that Jaime turned bashful, an odd expression on him, and glanced away. His beauty could ruin her, _devastate_ her, but Jaime doesn’t see what she sees. 

“It’s not...this?” Brienne leaned into his hand at her cheek. Did she have a face that would scare babes?

“No, it’s your deeds; you’re quite famous now.” Jaime tapped the hilt of Oathkeeper with his golden hand, “Some of the attention might come from this.”

They arrived at Winterfell together, Jaime could usually be found at Brienne’s heels, and, of course, Oathkeeper. _People think us lovers._ It’s so ridiculous a concept that she can barely make her mind form the thought. 

“People have...assumed things about you and me, since I left King’s Landing,” Brienne replied, “I can bear it. The sword is your faith in me.”

“And no words or deeds will shake that?” Jaime sounded so wry, like her faith was misplaced, like she hadn’t repeated it, over and over, to any who naysayed him.

“Never.”

“And if the whole of Winterfell thinks we’ve laid together?”

It wasn’t true, but Brienne wished it was; she thought of it, sometimes--an abstraction, a fantasy with movements she couldn’t pin down. If the mocking was to be hers, if everyone thought he’d dishonored her, then why couldn’t it be true? _Because you’re you, and he’s Jaime Lannister._ It was the improper thought she couldn’t stop having.

“That must wound you,” she said, wishing she hadn’t spoken at all. “I’m sorry that my acquaintance begets that.”

“I’ve had _much_ worse whispered about me than people believing I bedded the Maid of Tarth.”

“Oh,” she replied, feeling stupid and girlish. _Cersei, his children, Kingslayer_. What was a rumor about being her lover compared to _that_? Jaime could end it, mock her openly, but he never has.

“There’s one thing, I suppose,” Jaime speaks slowly, like he’s unearthing something deep within him, “It’s only that it isn’t true. If you’re to bear the scorn of the Kingslayer stealing your virtue, you should reap the benefits.”

Brienne knew her mouth hung open after _that_ utterance; “The b-benefits?”

“ _Pleasure_ , my lady,” Jaime’s grin made her stomach drop, and Brienne loved and hated the feeling in turn. “Well, hopefully; I’ve never actually ascertained my skill.”

Brienne dared to put her hand over his where it still rested against her face, “A maid won’t know either way.”

“You wouldn’t be the first gallant knight to take a lover.”

 _Take_. As though it would be Jaime, coming to her, uncertain and filled with trepidation, and not the reverse. As though she wasn’t the one who’s blood pounded in her ears, who’s heart threatened to stampede out of her chest. 

Jaime’s hand on her cheek wavers a fraction, and Brienne holds it tighter. When had she learned to tell _he_ was nervous?

“And neither would you, ser.”

* * *

"I heard a song about you in a tavern down by the docks," Pod tells her one evening as he polishes her armor. She hasn't worn it in months, and he’s her squire no longer, but Pod maintains it as he had at Winterfell.

The armor makes her think of Jaime, as does Oathkeeper sitting on her bed. She touches the rubies inlaid in the pommel absentmindedly.

Fine; _lots_ of things make her think of Jaime.

"A song?" She replies when she realizes Pod is staring at her waiting for a response. "And _why_ were you in a tavern?"

"I was...having a pint," Pod replies; when scolded, he sounds like the stumbletongue boy who followed her around all those years ago. He's tall, now, not as tall as Jaime, or her, but _close_.

"Meeting a girl?" Brienne half-guesses. 

Pod is sixteen and a man grown, and all the kitchen girls in Evenfall, and Winterfell, and apparently the taverns by the docks seem to take notice. 

"Mayhaps." 

Brienne sighs. _Of all the things Jaime left me, Pod's cheekiness is the worst._ "And the song?"

"It was about the lady knight of Tarth, heir to the Evenstar."

"Quite a mouthful, What else?"

"It was quite the list of your deeds," Pod is smiling as he polishes her vambrace. "You fought a bear."

_Jaime fought a bear, fool that he is._

"...Not exactly."

"You killed the Mad Dog of the Saltpans."

Brienne reaches up, touches her ruined cheek, calluses on her fingertips scratching against the scar tissue, "And paid for that one."

"The song also said that you slayed Lady Stoneheart."

"And nearly got you killed," And _got_ Hyle Hunt killed. And lied to Jaime. He'd held her, after she killed the shade of Lady Catelyn, let her sob into his shoulder like she always wondered if he would.

Brienne doesn't think she wants to hear about the rest of this song.

Pod won't be deterred, though, "And that you defended Westeros during the Long Night, fought side-by-side with Ser Jaime with twin Valyrian steel blades."

"The glory lives on through song," Brienne whispers, an echo of something she'd said to Jaime long ago. His faith had been shaken, then. "I still believe that."

"I do, too, ser."

"Did the ballad call me the Kingslayer's Whore?"

"No," now Pod is grinning, a wicked one that he _definitely_ inherited from Jaime, "but the bard _did_ sing of how you and Ser Jaime were lovers."

 _Seven help me_. Brienne takes a deep breath, "And what did the people of Tarth think of this legend?"

"Well, ser, they thought it was _very_ romantic."

* * *

“Go home,” Jaime had said to her, “you’ve a family and a place to return to.”

And that Jaime didn't was left unspoken between them, a void at the end of his sentence. It wasn’t a rejection, not an outright one at least, but it stung in a way Brienne couldn’t quite articulate at the time.

“Besides,” he continued when he realized her reply was not forthcoming, “You _hate_ King’s Landing. It’s filled with blackguards and oathbreakers, right?”

“It was,” she replied, stubbornly looking away from him. Jaime never missed a chance to poke at the naive view of the world she held when they first met. _It also has you_ , but she can’t say that. “Do you really mean to stay?”

"There's probably _something_ a crippled, honorless knight can do around here." Then, he shrugged like the decision was a whim; Brienne knew that meant the choice weighed heavily on him. 

"You're not honorless." 

“That’s what you keep assuring me.”

How many men had told her to return to her father? Randyll Tarly? Hyle Hunt?. Brienne never listened to any of them, forged ahead on her own path.

For Jaime, though, she would heed him. It was her punishment, for loving him and asking for too much. She had to be content with with he'd given her. She hadn't kissed Jaime in farewell, hadn't uttered any of the words she wanted to let Jaime know she felt bound to him, and fathoms between them wouldn't change that.

Instead, she’d smile at him and said, "There's plenty of good you can do."

Brienne hadn't expected the ‘plenty of good’ involved Jaime becoming a king.

* * *

“You’ve a letter.”

Her father is in his solar, sorting through correspondence; Brienne steps in to talk to him about finding a new master-at-arms. Along with Pod, she’d been training some of the village children who showed an interest. There was even a girl or two.

“I’m not marrying him, whoever he is.” Her fame came with no less than three marriage proposals, all of which Brienne adamantly refused. Their letters spoke of her deeds, which was better than before, but the sting of her father’s matches for her lingers.

_If they came here, and saw, they’d think differently._

Jaime lingers in her heart, too--stuck in a place that Brienne thinks no other will ever occupy. She’d known the feeling of having that reciprocated, if only for a few months, and that was enough. 

Selwyn gives a booming laugh, “I don’t think that’s what this missive is; it’s from King’s Landing.”

In the near year she’d been back on Tarth, Brienne’s received nothing from King’s Landing. She gets regular letters from Sansa at Winterfell, but nothing else. She can’t imagine Jaime sitting down and writing her; what would he say?

Her father holds the letter out; Brienne takes it and rips it open. The handwriting is immediately familiar to her--print slightly uneven and stilted, written with the wrong hand.

 _Jaime_.

She reads it; the contents are brief and formal. _Please come to King’s Landing to discuss a trade agreement and reconstruction efforts._ Signed Jaime Lannister, first of his name, along with a rambling list of other titles that follow.

His first contact in a year, and it _hurts._

Brienne holds the letter, stares at it like Jaime's warmth will seep off the pages and into her, like it always had at Winterfell. He complained of the cold, but Jaime was _always_ warm. 

"What does it contain?" her father asks.

"It's a summon."

"From the king?"

Selwyn says the words with just a _bit_ of innuendo. After the second marriage proposal since her return home, she told her father of Winterfell. _I'm not a maid,_ she told him, _I was no prize before, but I have nothing to offer a husband now._

Her father only asked if she loved Jaime; Brienne answered truthfully-- _yes._

"From the King," she repeats.

"Does he ask for your hand?"

Brienne has to laugh at that. "No, Father; Jaime wants marble, surely."

She never expected to wed him, gave herself to him knowing the impossibility of anything long term. The letter is so impersonal it feels like a denial of their shared history, and _that_ Brienne never expected. 

Being his lover was wonderful, but being his friend, knowing the trials they'd weathered together, that was her pride.

"Will you go?"

Brienne nods, moves her longing to the spot in her mind where duty resides, "We can't refuse a royal summons."

* * *

Her father sees her off at the dock with a warm embrace.

"Brienne, if your happiness lies elsewhere, you can chase it," he says into her hair.

"I'm happy, Father," she replies, "It's just... complicated."

"Don't settle; you're made for more than that."

"I love it here."

"And I love you being here, but Tarth isn't going anywhere."

Brienne doesn't ask Pod to accompany her, but he appears on the dock.

"Pod," she smiles at him, "you don't have to come with me. You're my squire no longer."

She'd knighted him when they arrived on Tarth; h deserved it before, but there'd been no opportunity. Pod followed her home, and his loyalty was testament to his character.

"Ser, I'm your squire for life," Pod looks up at her, "I'll follow you anywhere."

 _He's too good._ Brienne puts her hand on Pod's shoulder to convey her regard for him. "Alright, then, to King's Landing we go."

The voyage is uneventful, which is just how Brienne prefers her voyages. She tries not to imagine scenarios of meeting Jaime, and it doesn't work very well. Her mind wanders to a dozen equally unlikely conversations they _definitely_ won't have.

Maybe he couldn't get the words right. Maybe he wants to say his piece in person. Jaime isn't great with words; he prefers action, as does Brienne.

Sometimes, though, _sometimes_ she wants to hear the words he's never said to her.

* * *

“Ser Jaime didn’t kiss you?”

Pod practically _yells_ in disbelief; Brienne fights the urge to clap her hand over his mouth.

“Pod,” she looks at him, “he received me in his audience chamber. He’s _king_ ; it would not be proper for him to--”

“Proper?” Pod interrupts, “What does Ser Jaime care about propriety?" He pulls a face, as though Brienne is missing something obvious. 

"He has to, now," Brienne isn't sure what she's trying to convince herself of--that Jaime would've, in a different venue, have taken her into his arms? She grew accustomed to his sweeping gestures; having no need for secrecy made him mortifying demonstrative. 

Brienne liked it, though, knowing she was wanted enough by someone to let it shine through to a public space. 

Pod's brows are furrowed, "I don't think it needs to be so complicated."

It is, though, which is the reality Brienne has to live in. Just like the letter, Jaime spoke to her like she was a stranger. Winterfell was Winterfell, and King's Landing was different.

She dismisses Pod, not that he's bound to listen to any longer, and he keeps scowling all the way out her door.

After Brienne has changed and freshened up, a page comes and informs her that she's to dine with Jon Snow, if it pleases her.

It doesn't, but Brienne will do it regardless.

Brienne has nothing against Jon Snow personally--she remembers him from Winterfell; his men were loyal to him, he had a brooding air about him, and spoke little except to his family and friends. 

They'd barely spoken when he'd greeted her and Pod at the dock earlier. Jon commented, briefly, on some of the repair efforts they passed as they rode to the Red Keep, but there was little in the way of pleasantries. Brienne can't hold an entire dinner's worth of smalltalk, so she hopes Jon doesn't mind eating in relative silence. 

"I hope your rooms are to your liking," Jon says when she greets him in the small dining room the page lead her to.

"My needs are few," Brienne waves her hand dismissively, "Although the entire capital is more pleasant than last I was here."

Jon doesn't laugh, but he does smile the slightest bit, "There's less dragonfire."

"And somehow we're all still alive." Brienne smiles a bit, too.

When the food is placed before her on the table, Brienne is surprised at how ravenous she feels. The food is _significantly_ better than what she'd eaten for a week on the ship. They eat in silence for several moments.

It's Jon who breaks the silence, placing his fork and knife on the edge of his plate, "The King," he starts, "this afternoon."

"...Greeted me as a king would greet a lady representing a house who's sworn to the crown."

Jon makes the same face that Pod had when they discussed Jaime. It's more subtle, but the confusion is plain. "And that's... acceptable to you?"

“Is my acceptance required for it to be what happened?”

“No,” Jon starts, “but--”

“Lord Snow,” Brienne interrupts, “It’s unnecessary.” She stabs at a potato to busy herself, watches her plate instead of trying to read Jon’s facial expression.

Just like Pod, like her father, Jon doesn’t understand. Things aren’t easy like that between Jaime and her; Brienne can’t go to him and weep like a maiden. Their time at Winterfell was bound by its circumstances. Death was at their heels, dogged and insistent. Each time Brienne held Jaime, she thought it to be the last. 

She doesn’t know how to exist with Jaime outside of that, doesn’t even know if they could navigate those waters.

“Jaime wrote to you.”

Brienne looks up, startled; Jon’s gray gaze is fixed on her, “I know,” she says, “that’s why I came here.”

Jon shakes his head, clearly frustrated, “Have you _seen_ him write a letter?”

Had she? There was no time or need to write letters at Winterfell. “I’ve seen him write,” she answers, “Not a letter, but other things.”

“Then you know his penmanship is _terrible_ , and he’s dreadfully slow.”

One of Jaime’s many, many left-handed indignities; Brienne saw him struggle, and overcome, so many times. He always felt lacking, and Brienne never knew how to ease that. “I know.” 

“ _I_ write his letters, but he wrote to _you_.”

Jon is trying to tell her something, something that Brienne is too afraid to hear.

“He wants marble.”

“No, I mean he wrote to you _every_ month, then burned them unsent.” Brienne might be imagining it, but Jon looks embarrassed. “I...spend a lot of time with him, and he’s…”

“...Sentimental?” Brienne finishes, smiling more openly. Jaime looked at so many things softly--nature, children playing, simple things that seemed likely to fade.

“ _Yes_ ,” Jon sighs, and Brienne wants to ask him what the past year was like, to be so close to Jaime when she wasn’t. “When I was at Castle Black, years ago, Maester Aemon said something that stuck with me.”

Brienne nods, waiting for Jon to reveal the rest.

“He told me that love was the death of duty.”

“Do you believe that?”

Jon shakes his head, “I did, for a long time. Love has only ever made me break an oath." 

“We swear oaths for love. To serve people, or protect them. Sometimes we break those oaths upholding others. It's more complicated than in stories."

Even her girlhood love for Renly inspired her. She swore to protect Jaime, to die for him if needed. 

"You believe love can compel duty, then? That it can make a person stay the right course, choose to do right, even if they hate the task?"

Jon won't break eye contact with her, and Brienne stares back. "I do," she replies.

 _Is Jaime not proof?_

He sighs, “Then you know, ser, don’t you, why Jaime became king?”


	4. Jaime II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Brienne’s been in King’s Landing for two nights and a day, and Jaime is doing a fabulous job of royally fucking things up. When Jaime Lannister, King or not, makes a disaster of his plans, he doesn’t do so in half-measures._
> 
> _Now, he’s doing what he does best: avoiding thinking about it._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope everyone who celebrates Christmas had a lovely and relaxing time! Here's a slightly belated gift in the form of Jaime's second chapter.

Brienne’s been in King’s Landing for two nights and a day, and Jaime is doing a fabulous job of royally fucking things up. When Jaime Lannister, King or not, makes a disaster of his plans, he doesn’t do so in half-measures.

Now, he’s doing what he does best: avoiding thinking about it.

The entire first day of Brienne’s stay is spent with Addam assessing repairs in Flea Bottom. It’s not _exactly_ work for the Lord Commander or the King, but both Jaime and his Small Council are more productive without defined roles. Even after a year, when the number of workers and specialists in King’s Landing has increased tenfold, Jaime doesn’t think they can afford to be anything less than pragmatic.

They’re re-designing the sewer system in Flea Bottom--most of the rubble has been cleared away, and some blocks are even habitable. Jaime knows very little about sewer construction, but he can look at the progress and nod. His nod is a _royal_ nod, after all, and acts like a stamp of approval. 

“Shit _literally_ ran through the streets before,” Jaime uses his left hand to shield his eyes from the sun. The weather in King’s Landing has all but returned to it’s balmy, humid self.

“And now it can run underground,” Addam replies, “and not into the drinking water.”

Addam guards Jaime, but he’s not too concerned; the people they pass smile and wave. A woman, heavy with child, offers Jaime a sweet bun that he takes and says thank you.

“Want me to take a bite, to see if it’s poisoned?” Addam _might_ be asking in earnest.

“If I’m to die from bread offered by the smallfolk, then so be it,” Jaime takes a bite, the sugar from the glaze sweet on his tongue. “Besides, Kingsguard aren’t food tasters.”

“That’s _not_ what you told Ser Boros.”

“Well,” Jaime says, “he was a cunt.”

Ser Boros, like all of Robert’s Kingsguard, are corpses somewhere under a pile of rubble.

“That he was,” Addam agrees, “You know, there wasn’t any need for you to come out today.”

“I wanted to take in the sights,” Jaime answers dismissively. “See my subjects.”

Addam doesn’t respond for a long moment; he can probably tell Jaime is lying through his teeth.

“But we took a similar route three days ago,” Addam replies, “I thought you’d be with your lady love, now that she’s arrived.”

Jaime glowers but doesn’t respond.

“Did she spurn you?” Addam laughs.

“...Not exactly.”

“Did you stick your foot in your mouth?”

“No.”

Jaime is taken aback that the way he greeted Brienne in his audience room hasn’t spread to every person in the Red Keep. Jon had stared at the two of them like the exchange was a mummer’s farce. Jaime half expected his Hand to throw his arms up in the air and storm out. Jon was very good at stomping out of rooms looking theatrically moody. Jaime has yet to figure out how to employ it in the political sphere, but he has some ideas.

“Then what the fuck is the problem? Do you think she’ll run you through with that Valyrian steel sword of hers if you kiss her?”

_Maybe?_

“I greeted her in the audience chamber.”

“Warmly, I hope.”

“...It was befitting of her station as heir to the Evenstar,” Jaime answers, expecting Addam’s reproach. If someone _else_ had greeted Brienne as he had, given their history, Jaime wouldn’t be able to keep his thoughts to himself.

“What in the seven hells?” Addam practically roars, “Weren’t you lovers?”

Jaime sighs, "It's complicated."

Addam gives him a look that clearly states he doesn't get it.

* * *

They actually _do_ need marble from Tarth.

Enough of the city is livable that Jaime turns his attention to repairs on the Red Keep itself. He doesn’t care about it that much, personally, but it’s a symbol of power, and he knows that symbols are important. He also supposes having more usable rooms and spaces will become important as time goes on.

Jaime’s laying scaffolding for a five-year plan, which makes him astoundingly grumpy--he doesn’t want to _be_ here in five years. He wants to be with Brienne, on Tarth or wherever else she wants to go, which might be something he fucked up too grandly to even be a possibility.

The meeting means he _has_ to see Brienne, to sit across from her at the table, and talk to her about arranging to put marble on a ship bound for King’s Landing, along with men capable of working with it. Ser Davos and Jon are more useful--Jon knows what is needed, while Davos knows more about ships than Jaime ever cares to. Brienne knows enough about the status of the marble mines to give Jon and Davos numbers on how much they can expect. 

Jaime’s impressed at how she’s grown from the mulish maiden who dragged him around the Riverlands. He’s seen Brienne command men, seen her give her opinion, albeit nervously, on a war council, but he’s never seen her use knowledge of her home to negotiate.

Brienne looks _good,_ too, and Jaime doesn't mean she looks beautiful. Watching her across the table, he can't remember what he mocked once upon a time. He can only think of the jolt of possessiveness at defending her against the likes of fucking Ronnet Connington.

More than his attraction, though, Brienne looks _healthy--_ her cheeks are full, and her pale skin is rosy. She looks like she's spent the last year eating three square meals and sleeping in a real bed. For all he missed her, the wellness of her countenance means he doesn't regret that she went home, only that he didn't explain himself.

After Lady Stoneheart, when they found safe a place to stop, Jaime saw the full extent of Brienne's injuries and realized what an utter fool he was for sending her on such a quest alone.

 _She's a girl,_ he'd thought, _barely a woman grown. This was too much for her alone_. 

"I should've accompanied you," he whispered as he pressed a cloth soaked in hot wine to her cheek. The wound was infected, and Brienne would bear the physical reminder of his unconditional faith in her.

She hadn't winced, but the pain showed in her eyes, "Your place is with your king."

"My place is with you," he replied, and it was too much of his heart to reveal, but he couldn't not say it. "You shouldn't die for the likes of me."

_She's worth my life, but I'm not worth hers._

"Jaime," Brienne looked like she was going to cry, "I lied to you."

"It doesn't matter." Her readiness to die for him, to put his life over her own, gave Jaime a clarity inaccessible to him before. He touched the fresh rope burns on her neck from the noose. _Love._ It couldn't be anything else, could it?

The scars from the noose faded, some, over time. Jaime kissed them, once, at Winterfell and whispered _I'm sorry_ over and over.

Hopefully, his staring isn’t _too_ noticeable, or the fact that he isn’t listening in the slightest. _This is what a King’s Small Council is for, isn’t it?_ He’s certainly better than Aerys, or Robert, who never even attended these meetings. Thinking of kings causes his mind to drift to Joffrey, then Tommen, and he forces himself to stop the line of thought.

A boot kicking his shin under the table rips Jaime from his wandering mind; he startles, raises his head from where he’d been resting it on his hand. 

“Jaime.” Jon says his name, and must’ve been the one who kicked him. “You’re not listening, are you?” 

“I am so,” Jaime protests, “ _Intently_.”

Jon’s glare is reproachful; Brienne’s expression is similar. _Gods_ , he loves the way she looks at him when she thinks he’s being foolish, fondness and exasperation clashing in her eyes. The look might as well turn back the passage of time, for the little it has changed. 

Something like hope blossoms in this chest.

“Then what’s the order of need for repairs?” Jon asks.

“There...is an order,” Jaime tries to recall, but only remembers the pleasant timbre of Brienne’s voice, not her words. “A good one, that was discussed thoroughly.”

Jon looks exasperated, an expression Jaime enjoys. Riling his Hand up is _very_ satisfying, and Jaime’s life feels devoid of pleasure some days. Jon responds to teasing by becoming even grumpier, but he never stops doing his job.

“Without you listening,” Jon chides.

Brienne, for all her stoicism, _actually_ chuckles, “You couldn’t tell Ser Jaime wasn’t listening? It was clear from the moment we started discussing shipments.”

“I’d hoped I was mistaken,” Jon replies.

Jaime’s stopped listening, again, though because Brienne’s words translate to _she was watching me_ , and the seed of hope grows.

* * *

When Brienne exits the Small Council chambers, Jaime rises from his chair fast enough the legs make an unpleasant scrape across the stone floor. Ser Davos and Jon are still conversing, but they stop long enough to watch Jaime nearly sprint through the door. His Hand will surely comment on that, later; it wasn’t the most regal of behaviors. Jon's jibes are subtle but effective.

Brienne’s long stride has carried her halfway down the hall by the time Jaime gets to the corridor. He nearly calls to her, but can’t make his voice say her name. 

Jaime doesn’t know to woo her back. He’s very skilled at _refusing_ advances, but not at making them. Cersei came to him, on terms dictated by her. Seduction, even if Jaime could manage such a feat, would have Brienne _certain_ she was being mocked.

He’d gotten Brienne into his bed before, kept her there, convinced her of the genuineness of his intent. _What did I do the first time?_ Brienne’s affection grew like water wearing away at rock; she demanded his honesty without ever asking for it. There'd been no machinations, no coyness--those were Cersei's weapons, wielded with unearned hubris, and the cause of her demise. 

Jaime flung himself at Brienne, wildly and gracelessly, in the hope that she would catch him as she always had. She's the only person who never let him fall on his face; the only person who ever put her life above his own. Brienne found worth in him, even at his most wretched. When he thinks of the weight of that, calling her name becomes easy.

"Brienne!"

Nearly out of his sight around a corner, Brienne stops and turns to look back to him. Even from the distance down the corridor, Jaime can see confusion flash on her features, a furrow of her brow.

She doesn't walk away, though, even as Jaime crosses the distance to her.

"Ser," she starts, shakes her head, "King--"

This distance is his fault. Jon was right; Brienne, in any uncertainty or need, would shield herself in courtly etiquette.

"--Jaime," he finishes, "and nothing more, not to you."

Brienne opens her mouth to protest, but closes it almost immediately, giving him a sharp nod. "Jaime."

His name on her lips conjures a hundred memories--the quiet gasp of it in his ear while they fucked; her yelling it, throat hoarse, during battle; the way she would chide him for wallowing in self-pity. Jaime stares at her lips forming the words, able to recall perfectly the feel of their fullness against his own.

"You answered my summons," he tells her.

"The king summoned a representative from Tarth," Brienne answers, "to not do so would be to defy the crown."

Jaime answers her with a surly, "You're so dutiful."

"As are you; you took the throne." 

_She's caught me_. Not that Jaime will run from her. "You told me I could do good."

She smiles, just a bit, "You can. You _are._ "

There's no one else, living or dead, whose regard shakes him to his core as hers does. _I did this because of you_. Jaime won't tell her that; it might create guilt in her.

"I'm trying," he starts, "It's mostly Jon, though."

The expression in her blue eyes softens even further; getting through Brienne's walls is a gentle siege, and Jaime remembers the battle strategy.

"I'm sure it's both of you." 

_I love you_. The words are there on the tip of his tongue. Saying them might keep her here. If that's not Brienne's will, Jaime doesn't want to weaponize the words to serve his aims, not when he's never said them to her. 

"I tried to write you," he admits instead, "but I never could get it right."

"Lord Snow told me," Brienne blushes, more noticeable on her unmarred cheek. 

"He's a meddler."

"I think he just cares about you."

He’ll scold his Hand, later. "I wanted to tell you that I missed you, wench."

_More than I miss my swordhand. More than I miss my family._

Brienne lets out a tiny gasp, genuinely surprised. "I missed you, too. I never wanted to stay on Tarth."

 _Then why did you listen to me?_ Brienne was ever obstinate in all the years of their acquaintance. Jaime can't find the words to ask that, either. So, he decides to just tell Brienne the truest sentiment he can manage.

"I'm glad you're here."

* * *

Jaime doesn’t know what kind of king he is.

Most days, he feels like he’s treading water, or like he’s rowing a boat, one-handed, and moving in a circle, or like he’s trying to hold up bricks that are collapsing around him. _All_ of these activities are not something a one-handed man can do with ease.

He thinks, though, that he knows the kind of king he _wants_ to be.

If Aerys was mad, and Robert was hedonistic, Jaime, golden hand or no, wants to be _just_. If, in a century, maesters at the Citadel write about him, if they remember that the Kingslayer turned out to be a fair ruler, who didn’t run Westeros into the ground, Jaime will be pleased with his legacy.

There’s glory in that, not the kind he dreamt of as a boy, not the glory of Arthur Dayne or Brynden Tully, but a quiet glory that has purpose beyond wielding a blade. Heroes from the Golden Age didn’t make sure the population of a city was housed and fed, but a king could.

Since Jaime isn’t Robert, or even Cersei, there’s little in the way of leisure. He’s lost all interest in tourneys, he never cared for hunting beyond feeding himself, and won’t waste the crown’s gold on feasts and wine. So, Jaime’s idea of a good time is sharing a flagon of wine with Jon fucking Snow, and trying to get him drunk enough to answer Jaime’s questions.

“You were cross with me today during our meeting,” he pours Jon wine, shoving the glass at him.

“Because you weren’t listening.”

“Was there dire need of my counsel?” 

“No,” Jon replies, “but there might be in the future.”

"Kicking me under the table was very effective."

"I don't want want to _kick_ the king of Westeros," Jon sounds _delightfully_ fed up.

Jaime laughs and drinks deep from his wine cup, “Have you never been distracted by the object of your affection?”

Jon looks down at his wine, as he often does when he’s thinking, or doesn’t want to show his expression. “I have,” he admits, slowly, “but...I’d hope I could better mask it.”

“Would you need to?” Jaime spent decades hiding his feelings. "You're young, from a high house--well, _two_ , really. You also hold a position of power."

“...Mayhaps,” Jon evades. 

"King's Landing is teeming with people. You could find a woman, easily." Jaime pauses, remembering their unfinished conversation from months ago, "Or a man."

"I don't want just _anyone_ ," Jon's voice is almost a mumble. 

" _Ah_ , you want fidelity," Jaime finishes, "I never understood men who buy whores. What's the appeal in a nameless cunt? Or, I suppose, in your case--"

" _Don't_ finish that sentence!" Jon blurts, "But, yes. I want... commitment, I suppose. Not for life, necessarily; I know that's impractical."

"But that you're _theirs_ , wholly, at that moment."

His Hand is _definitely_ blushing, now, and Jaime wonders who Jon Snow is thinking of, now. The dead Wildling girl? Or--

“We’ve fresh wine; tell me about the brother from the Night’s Watch.”

“You _remember_ that?” Jon groans, “That was moons ago.”

“All the more reason to finish the conversation,” Jaime chuckles, “You can learn a lot about a man by who he takes to his bed.”

_Like a man who fucked his sister._

Jon looks at Jaime for a long moment, gray eyes indiscernible, “He was my steward."

Jaime nods, urging Jon to continue.

“His name was Satin.”

“What a _name_ ; was he born in a brothel?”

Jon nods, and Jaime starts laughing. “Are you sure you didn’t confuse it with a transaction?”

“By the time we--Satin was brought to the Wall from Oldtown; whatever he was before, he became our brother.”

“That you fucked,” Jaime finishes. 

“Do you judge me for it?” Jon’s tone is harsher, more reserved, like he’s looking down upon Jaime from a height, passing his own judgment. Ned Stark _is_ his father, blood be damned. All the Stark children dredge up too many ghosts with their mere presence. 

_My teasing always misses_. Jon is akin to Brienne in that way; Jaime often went too far early in their acquaintance, too. He didn’t care, at first, but then he learned of the softness of her heart and had to undo the damage he wrought. He’d kissed her until Brienne believed his body, if not his words.

Jaime’s _pretty_ sure kissing Jon won’t earn his trust.

“I fucked my sister,” Jaime replies, “Who am I to pass judgment?”

_People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones._

Jon laughs, more loudly than Jaime usually hears, “People mocked him, for his name, and his past.”

Jon sees beyond the surface to find the value underneath; it’s the same quality that makes him a good Hand.

“Is he alive?”

“Yes, but I don’t know where.”

“Would you want to find him again?”

“I think I’d like to talk to him again." Jon must want to turn the attention off him because he continues, “ _You_ spoke with Ser Brienne today, after the meeting.”

Jaime nods, knows he’s probably smiling like an utter fool.

“And you didn’t open the conversation by introducing yourself? Full title, King of Andals, Protector of the Realm.” 

" _Impertinent_ ," Jaime scolds, "A crueler king would've cleaved your head from your shoulders a dozen times by now."

"You're not a cruel king," Jon replies, and there's a touch of emotion to his tone that Jaime can't quite parse. "What did you say to her?"

"If your Satin came through the door right now, what would you say?" Jaime turns the question back on him.

"I'd tell him that it was good to see him, after so long."

Jaime smiles, "I told Brienne that I missed her."

* * *

Three days after Brienne arrives, half of the remaining Stark children arrive at King’s Landing. Jaime, Jon and what feels like an entire score of guards follow them to the gates of the city.

Jon puts an arm around Sansa and Arya, hugging them close. He'd told Jaime once, months ago, that he'd never been close with Sansa as children, but their reunion after so many years apart seemed to have changed that. Jon holds his sisters equally close.

Jaime feels a minor pang of envy at witnessing a normal sibling relationship; that ship sailed for him, long ago. _I should write to Tyrion, and see if it can be mended._ At least his brother held Casterly Rock, as he'd always wanted. As far as Jaime knew, he'd taken no wife after his marriage to Sansa was annulled.

Sansa, who stands before him now, having left Jon to talk to Arya.

"Queen Sansa," Jaime holds out his left hand to her, and she clasps it in both of her own. She's dainty, but her grip is strong. “You look like Lady Catelyn more everytime I see you."

It's the right thing to say because Sansa _beams_ at him. 

At Riverrun as a boy, he’d been more interested in Brynden Tully’s stories, and even _less_ interested in Lysa, but it didn’t stop him from noticing Catelyn. Jaime saw Catelyn alive, and dead, long after Sansa saw her last. He tries to push Lady Stoneheart from his mind, to remember Catelyn through Sansa, and not through her resurrected corpse. 

“And you _still_ don’t look like a king,” Sansa replies.

“Ah,” Jaime shrugs, “your brother disagrees. He flattered me, and now here I am.”

“So you know where to lodge your complaints,” Jon says, holding Arya at arm’s length and surveying her. “Are you taller again?”

“Yep. And you look as broody as ever.”

“Doesn’t he?” Jaime can’t resist the jibe, “He makes that face _constantly_.”

“And it’s certainly your fault,” Sansa adds, “Jon’s letters make him sound like your nursemaid.”

“Maybe I should read them before they’re sent."

When they’d taken Sansa from the Eyrie, Jaime couldn’t imagine this scene--the mere concept of Ned Stark’s children laughing with him at the gates the Red Keep would’ve seemed like the worst fever dream. If Ned looks down from on high, Jaime hopes Ned is fucking laughing because he sure as hell is.

Jon, Arya, and Sansa are chatting and laughing amongst themselves. _They’re acting like children_ , Jaime thinks, and that they’re able to is a blessing. That’s what he’s protecting, and Jaime is certain Sansa is of the same mind. All their childhoods, brief as they were, had been stolen from them.

“ _Gods_ , the weather here is _so_ much better.”

Jaime recognizes that soft, melodic voice; he assumed Margaery Tyrell would be around, somewhere.

“Are you not fond of the perpetual cold, Lady Margaery?”

Margaery smiles, honeyed and charming, but with the same hidden cleverness Jaime had noticed when she wed Tommen years ago. She’s as comely as she was then, too. _A fine wife for Tommen_ , he’d thought.

“It’s fine if you’ve something to keep you warm.”

There’s a _bit_ of innuendo, there; Margaery looks at the back of Sansa’s head where her long auburn hair is held back in a twist of braids. _Is that rumor true as well?_ From what Jaime knew, Margaery had gone to visit Sansa after her coronation and hadn’t returned to Highgarden. Perhaps Willas Tyrell thought his sister had been used as a bargaining piece too many times and decided to leave her be.

“It helps,” Jaime replies, thinking of Brienne under a pile of furs before a fire. “I strangely miss it.”

“There’s fun to be had in the southern climes, too,” Margaery replies, lilting, “the clothing here is _so_ much lighter.”

The innuendo still drips from her every word; Jaime, uncomfortable, decides to change the subject. “Ser Loras will be glad to see you.”

“How fares my brother?”

“Well,” Jaime answers, “Lord Commander Marbrand keeps him busy, but I can’t say the tasks will sate his thirst for glory. We’ve had no tourneys.”

Margaery answers with a girlish giggle, “He’ll adapt; I’m sure he’s matured.”

Jaime nods, “I was like Loras, once--young, skilled, and hungry for glory,” Jaime glances down at where his swordhand once was; he’d put the gold hand on, today, to meet the retinue from Winterfell, but he rarely wears it. “I hope he's learned what’s important.”

She touches Jaime’s arm with a delicate hand, “He has; I’m sure. Haven’t we all?”

Words drying up in his throat, Jaime nods and manages to reply, “We have.”

 _It’s not glory, or power; it’s people_.

Margaery’s lost people, too--her father, her brother Garlan, even Renly and Tommen. Jaime hopes she finds comfort and companionship in Sansa, however things are between them. 

“I’m sorry about Tommen,” she whispers after a moment, “He was a sweet boy; I’d have happily stayed his queen.”

Jaime smiles a little at that--even through his grief over Tommen and Myrcella, to have them acknowledged as _his_ lifts his spirits.

“And you’d have been a fine one.”

Jon comes over to them with Sansa on one arm and Arya on the other, “We should eat,” Arya says, “then I want to see if Ser Brienne will fight me.”

 _“I_ want to fight you,” Jon replies, ruffling Arya’s hair.

He’ll lose to _all_ of them, probably even Arya, but Jaime still says, “Maybe I’ll join in, too.”


	5. Jon II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I’m not as righteous as you make me sound.”
> 
> “I’ve met many men,” Satin pauses, “and few are like you.” 
> 
> _Met._ Satin is clever in choosing his words; they reveal something, but not everything.
> 
> “I’m an oathbreaker.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry that it's been a bit since the last update! The holidays were hectic. 
> 
> Enjoy more of Jon's pining!

"Is the Tower of the Hand important to you?"

Jon hadn't really considered the question before, but supposes it's customary for the Hand of the King to live in the Tower of the Hand. It's a pile of rubble with a few pilons of wood that once acted as support for the walls. 

"I'm supposed to live there," Jon replies lamely, almost a question. He'd never considered himself much of a stumbler, but the king apparently generates the reaction. He stares at the scorching on the pile of stone and tries _not_ to think of Jaime watching him. "Dragonfire didn’t do this." 

The area around the tower is unscathed.

Jaime chuckles, low in his throat, in a way that Jon wants to lean into and run away from simultaneously. "No, Cersei burnt it down after Tyrion killed our father."

"Oh," Jon replies. He still doesn't know how to respond when Jaime mentions his sister; he grieves her, Jon knows that, but he's not sure if her death is the source of his grief. "My rooms are fine. I don't care to see it rebuilt."

"Good," Jaime replies, "I fucking hate this building anyway."

Jon is certain Jaime wouldn't choose to live in the Red Keep if there was another viable place to rule from. The building holds memories for him--unpleasant ones.

"Why?"

Jaime shudders, like a chill passes through him, despite the warmth of the afternoon, "She looked so...gleeful while it burned. Aerys had the same expression when he burned people. I understood, then, or started to, what she was becoming. Or maybe what she always was."

 _Aerys. My grandfather._ Jon still struggles to reconcile his lineage. That Jaime, at seventeen, had slit the Mad King's throat, and that he was descended from that same king. Did the Targaryen madness run in him, too? He had none of the features, but that didn't account for his mind. 

_I'm Ned Stark's son,_ Jon tells himself again. _My blood doesn't matter, only my decisions._

Jaime is staring at the rubble, imagining a scene from the past. Jon puts a hand on his shoulder and gives a firm squeeze he imagines is comforting.

"You're not her," Jon says when Jaime looks to him. "And I'm not Aerys, or Daenerys."

Jaime grins, and Jon stomps down any reaction it might engender, "Do you really believe that, or are you patronizing me?"

"I have to believe it." If he _thinks_ he's like a Targaryen, it's the first step down that path.

"You're more like Rhaegar," Jaime replies, "if you need a Targaryen model."

Jon isn’t sure that he wants that, but at least Jaime isn’t telling him he’s like Aerys. He doesn’t think Jaime would’ve asked him to be his Hand if that were the case. The king notices his silence, and continues unprompted.

“You’re like Ned Stark, too, if that’s what you longed to hear,” Jaime says, “He had a certain judgmental glare, and you’ve mastered it.”

“Thank you,” Jon replies; it feels like a compliment, even though Jaime might not mean it that way. “I know you and he weren’t...friends.”

“That a simplified version of it.”

"You're as Ser Brienne thinks you are,” he pauses, “and as I think you are."

Jaime throws his head back in laughter; Jon understands why Brienne holds so much love for him.

* * *

Margaery Tyrell slips her arm into Sansa’s as Jon escorts them to their lodgings. 

Jon asked that a room be prepared for each of them. He’d made a point to choose rooms Sansa wouldn’t have stayed in the first time she was in King’s Landing, which took some thought with the damage to the Red Keep. It also meant he had to asked Jaime where the Starks had been housed all those years ago. Jaime guessed, and Jon was pleased to recall that part of the Keep was still open to the air.

Margaery stops him, though, at the door of Sansa’s chamber with a soft hand on his upper arm. Before speaking, she bats her eyelashes at him, presumably to engender his agreement.

“I’ll stay with Queen Sansa,” Margaery lilts, “there’s no need to fuss over two chambers.”

 _You’re a Tyrell, and highborn,_ _not a ladies maid._ It wasn’t strange, for a maid to share a girl’s room; he remembers such things from his boyhood at Winterfell. The excuse is what sticks with him, though; it reminds him of Satin, claiming that the other stewards weren’t needed, that he could attend to the Lord Commander on his own. No brother of the Night’s Watch _wanted_ to be a steward, anyway; Jon remembers his own resentment of the duties.

It was a chance to steal a moment, disguised as practicality, even as a courtesy. _Clever_ , he thought, then; Satin’s excuse was more believable due to his station, but Margaery had no need to explain herself.

“It’s fine, Jon; Lady Margaery is welcome,” Sansa picks up the conversation; she doesn’t elaborate. Jon supposes she doesn’t need to.

“If it pleases you.”

Sansa was a queen, but she wasn’t _his_ queen. Jon had problems enough of his own without fixating on who his sister let into her bed.

She glances to Margaery, just the slightest movement of her blue eyes, “It does.”

Jon bows, too formal for his sister and not formal enough for a queen, and excuses himself.

* * *

Jaime and Arya make an odd sparring pair.

Arya has grown since Jon gifted her Needle all those years ago, but she’s still nearly a head shorter than Sansa. She’s far, far beyond his initial tutelage of _stick it with the pointy end_. Her time after she left King’s Landing and in Braavos is still a bit of a mystery. He knows his youngest sister is very, very lethal in ways he doesn’t yet quite comprehend. Arya’s movements are fluid, and she dances around Jaime with ease, parrying his strikes. Her small stature is an advantage that she uses to its fullest.

“Kingslayer,” Arya stops, right arm behind her back and Needle pointed at Jaime in her left. “Are you going easy on me?”

Only Arya calls Jaime _Kingslayer_ these days; she proclaims it like praise. Jon winced the first time she yelled it across the great hall at Winterfell, but Jaime doesn’t correct or chide her. He must find some redemption it being said as an accolade instead of an insult.

“There’s no need to,” Jaime responds, pushing his hair out of his face; Jon doesn’t think he’s cut it since he arrived in Winterfell, and now it brushes his shoulders. “You're faster, and younger."

Jon, quite expertly, he hopes, pretends to be watching their exchange, and not just watching Jaime. _A golden lion_. If Arya notices him noticing Jaime, she will tease him mercilessly. He can't help but think he's inviting her mocking like he’d invited Theon’s and Robb’s all those years ago.

"You're just out of shape because your ass sits on a cushy throne all day.”

Arya lunges at him, and Jaime dodges back, fast on his feet. She raises an eyebrow and tries again. 

“I don’t even _have_ a real throne,” Jaime counters, “and if I did, it wouldn’t be comfortable. You’ve _seen_ the Iron Throne.”

Jon leans against the wall and watches their banter; Arya threatened to kill Jaime, more than once, at Winterfell. Somewhere along the line they’d developed a rapport.

After a year apart, his sisters look like women grown. 

Jon remembers little of Sansa’s birth, but by the time Arya was born, Jon understood that he was a bastard, and knew the resentment in Catelyn’s eyes when she looked upon him. Sansa, Bran, and Rickon all resembled the Tullys, and only Arya had the gray eyes and dark hair of a Stark. Arya asked him, more than once, if she was a bastard, too. Jon reassured her, each time, that she’d come from her lady mother. Selfishly, he’d thought there’d be some comfort, or camaraderie, if she was.

After, Arya interrupts his thoughts, “Are you sulking, Jon?”

“No,” he replies, “I’m thinking.”

“About Hand things?”

“Things children shouldn’t concern themselves with.”

“Who’s a child any longer?”

You, _always_.”

“Tell that to Littlefinger,” Arya replies, “Or any of the other men I killed.”

Jon feels, in some way, responsible because he was the first to arm Arya. Then again, she would’ve found her way where she wanted to go, regardless.

“Arya,” Jon lowers his voice, “Lady Margaery--”

She grins, “You noticed?”

“She’s sharing Sansa’s room.”

“Here, too?” Arya laughs, “She isn’t one for discretion.”

“So it’s true.”

“Put your ear to their door at night, and you’ll find out.”

* * *

The Wall was bitter cold, and frankly pretty miserable. Jon remembers the first few months--feeling apart from the other new recruits, being called _Lord Snow_ , and sneered at for being a highborn bastard. His cloak and his boots were fine, finer than the other recruits, many of whom were smallfolk and criminals. His disposition hadn’t helped; others thought him sullen and prickly. Only Sam fell lower on the pecking order.

At Winterfell, Jon’s last name marked him a bastard, something that set him apart from his siblings. He was used to that slight feeling of _otherness._ Ned Stark was devoted to Catelyn; their marriage, though arranged, blossomed into love, and Jon was the tangible proof of his father’s dalliance. Catelyn’s gaze held all the scorn she didn’t aim at Ned, and while Robb and Arya and Bran treated him well, sometimes Sansa would mirror her mother’s expression.

Uncle Benjen made the Night’s Watch sound like a path to glory--a place where his birth didn’t matter, where Jon could prove himself through deeds in the way he always dreamt of as a child.

Men have dispositions, though, biases and opinions that follow him, regardless of repeating pretty vows in a godswood. And men, whom seem loyal on the surface, might well literally stab you in betrayal. The Night’s Watch meant equality between men, or it _should,_ and that’s why Jon took Satin Flowers as his steward.

“I don’t mean any offense,” Satin asked the first time they were alone, “The position is an honor, but why me?”

Jon was fairly certain half of Satin’s excitement was over the fact that being a steward required spending more time indoors than most other posts. The position hadn’t been an honor for Jon; he’d been offended for not being assigned to be a ranger.

“You’re competent,” Jon replied, “and you were brave enough when the Wildlings attacked.”

Satin laughed, and the disdain was clear from the sound, “Lord Commander, I pissed myself I was so frightened.”

“But you shot the crossbow quite effectively, and you didn’t run away.”

He expects Satin to deflect the compliment, but he smiles instead, “Thank you.”

As Lord Commander, Jon wanted to show what he thought the truth of the Night’s Watch should be--that birth didn’t matter once a man was here. He and Satin both carried the bastard surnames of their home, yet their upbringings were wildly different. It was all just circumstance. 

Satin bore the whispers against him as though they didn't happen, which Jon found admirable. He'd never been quite so adept at letting it roll off his back.

"People speak ill of you," Satin told him one night as he was tending the fire in the Lord Commander's chambers.

Jon knew that he wasn't entirely popular; his youth and treating with the Freefolk didn't sit well with many of his sworn brothers.

"I know," Jon responded, "my actions aren't the most popular."

"Not that," Satin jabbed a log with the poker, and it crackled. "I mean my presence here. They say it reflects poorly on you as Lord Commander."

"You took the black and swore your oaths in the godswood just as the rest of us. What came before doesn't matter." 

Satin turned from the fire to look at Jon. _He's pretty_ \--raven curls backlit by the glow of the fire. Even after months at Castle Black, Satin seemed too soft for the harshness of the Wall. He adapted--calluses formed on his hands from wielding the crossbow, he grew a beard and weathered the cold with only marginally more complaining than the rest of them.

"That doesn't change the fact that I was born in a brothel," Satin stood and placed the poker back in its stand. "And grew up there, and _worked_ there."

_How did he end up here?_

"You're a man of the Night's Watch."

Their eyes met, and Satin smiled; Jon hadn't understood the feeling welling up inside him from Satin's continued company. That he wanted Satin crashed down around his ears all at once.

* * *

Two afternoons after their arrival in King's Landing, Jon walks through the Red Keep with Sansa.

They exchanged letters, but Sansa's correspondence is guarded, and Jon never knows what questions to ask her. Their letters are filled with pleasantries and stories about events going on around them, but very little of their inner thoughts.

"You've made a lot of progress," Sansa tells him as they walk along on of the outer walls of Meagor's Holdfast. The view of the city below them shows the product of Jon and Jaime's effort. 

"We have," Jon replies, "It wasn't easy, and much of the time I felt like nothing was changing."

"And the smallfolk don't understand; they only know they're hungry and cold."

Of course Sansa understands; she's spent the last year with a kingdom of her own that needed rebuilt. 

"It's heartening, though, to look back and see what's been accomplished." 

Jon has a list in his head of finished projects that he recalls when it feels like nothing is getting done. The Dragon Gate is repaired, the people have water, and _most_ have shelter beyond tents. Ser Davos told him that Flea Bottom would be significantly more livable than before. 

"Winterfell and the Red Keep weren't built in a day; repairing them is not the job of a year."

Jon nods, knowing that Sansa is right. "I want to leave Westeros better than we found it."

"I have the same goal," Sansa stops walking and looks at him, "I know that expression on your face, Jon; you're worn thin."

"I...don't think I can do this forever." Jon's never admitted that to anyone. Jaime would understand, but that doesn't seem the right thing to tell the king, who thought Jon was capable enough to be Hand. He could do the job for a long time, but he tries to imagine being Hand thirty years from now, and can’t.

Sansa is much more reticent than she'd been as a girl; she takes a long moment formulating her response. Life taught her value of calculated words. Jon wishes she didn't need to think that way, but as a queen, she must. 

"A bad king, like Robert Baratheon, bleeds his people dry," she tells him, "An ineffective king _also_ let's his people drain him until there's nothing left. People in power have to know when to take things for themselves."

_Did Littlefinger teach her that? Did Cersei Lannister or Joffrey Baratheon inflict that lesson upon her?_

"Isn't that selfish?"

Sansa chuckles; she knew Jon was going to ask that, "It _can_ be, but it's also protection. Don't lose yourself; it's very hard to find again."

Jon could see that happening--burying himself in work until he's so mired in it that he can’t find himself. Jaime would do it, too. The Night's Watch demands that sacrifice, the utter and complete abandonment of self for a larger whole.

It wasn't noble; it was stupid.

"From one Stark to another, how?"

"There's probably myriad ways," his sister smiles, "but companionship, I think."

"Romantic companionship?" Jon isn't sure he wants Sansa's elaboration; that line of thought leads down a corridor of doors Jon can't open. Death, and distance, and impossibility bar the way.

"Mayhaps."

"Lady Margaery?" 

Sansa's cheeks turn the slightest bit pink; she has a good mastery of her reactions, but Jon knows her. 

"You could tell?"

"I'd never accuse her of subtly," Jon replies, "She jumped at the chance to share your chamber." 

"Do you disapprove?" Sansa sounds defiant, like she's awaiting his judgment. She sounds exactly as he had when saying a mirror of those words to Jaime. 

Jon laughs harder than he probably ought, harder than he has in recent memory. " _Gods_ , no, I don't judge you. I try not to make a practice of being a hypocrite."

Surprise is an odd expression on Sansa; her Tully blue eyes, so like Catelyn's, widen as she realizes what Jon revealed. Then, she smiles, "We had the least in common as children, and here we are now."

"In positions of authority we'd never thought would be ours."

"Yes, Jon, that's _exactly_ what I'm talking about."

* * *

Sansa excuses herself, eventually, and leaves Jon to his musings. The scene and the weather couldn’t be more different, but wandering the rampart of Maegor’s Holdfast reminds Jon a bit of standing watch on the Wall. How many nights had he stood looking outward over the land beyond the Wall with Sam, or Satin, or any of his other sworn brothers beside him?

Even as Lord Commander, sometimes he’d take a watch; Jon didn’t want to appear above the duties he assigned others. 

“Why do you do this?” Satin asked one night when he’d joined Jon.

“Because I started here,” Jon replied, “I don’t want to forget it, and I want those who serve under me to know that I remember, too.”

Satin’s reply was a quiet hum and to shift a bit closer to Jon until their shoulders bumped. They stood in silence for a few moments after that, staring into the blackness ahead of them.

“Most men forget,” Satin spoke, eventually, “They become cruel or indifferent to those beneath them, even if they were once in that place themselves.”

Jon never asked Satin about his time before joining the Night’s Watch; he only knew that, like many, he hadn’t been given a choice in coming here. It was a sentence. 

“I’m not as righteous as you make me sound.”

“I’ve met many men,” Satin pauses, “and few are like you.” 

_Met_. Satin is clever in choosing his words; they reveal something, but not everything.

“I’m an oathbreaker.”

Satin shrugged, “Who here keeps it, truly?”

They could touch and go unseen; most of Castle Black was asleep, and huddling close for warmth was common. Jon took Satin’s arm and linked it through his, pulled him close enough that Satin wrapped the edge of Jon’s cloak around himself. _There’s a rumor about us already; that Satin earned his place as my steward on his back_.

Jon laughed at that, and was _still_ laughing about it now; the rumor had it backwards.

 _Companionship_. 

Sansa’s words stick in Jon’s mind as he walks. He’d never thought of a lover as respite, or shelter. Was Satin like that? Could Jaime be like that? No, Jaime _needed_ that, someone steadfast, an anchor.

 _Brienne_. 

A clang of metal interrupts Jon’s thoughts. He looks over the battlement for the origin of the sound. He’s above one of the many practice yards in the Red Keep. Even from a height, the red and black ripples of Valyrian steel blades are unmistakable. 

Jaime and Brienne are sparring.

 _The two halves of Ice_. The blades sing as they clash, like the metal remembers being one. Tywin Lannister certainly hadn’t intended this when he had Ned Stark’s blade reforged; that Jaime and Brienne would use the blades to protect Winterfell. 

Jon never witnessed Jaime fight right-handed, but it must have been a glory to behold. He decides to ask Brienne if the chance presents itself. Jon thinks of Longclaw, the pattern on the blade and the wolf on the pommel.

_A wolf for a Stark._

_A bastard sword for a bastard._

A blade he still felt unworthy of.

He fought Jaime more than once in the last year, but Longclaw and Widow’s Wail aren’t two pieces of a whole. He doesn’t have the rapport with Jaime that Brienne does. It’s not about skill--Jon knows from watching, and from experience, that Jaime isn’t near the swordsman he’d been with his right hand. 

Jaime and Brienne are saying with swords what they can’t say with words, but that can’t be enough. _Why are they so foolish?_

There’s an intimacy to watching them fight, a synchronicity that makes Jon’s heart ache. He knew he had no chance, not when the torch Jaime carried for Brienne could light the blackest night of winter.

The Freefolk weren’t shy about their conquests, and Jon had seen his fair share of things that ought to be behind closed doors, but watching Jaime and Brienne is an intrusion. Jon feels like enough of a voyuer that he kneels behind the battlement like a child playing hide and seek. 

Suddenly, their clashing of blades ceases; Jaime drops Widow’s Wail into the dust at his feet, tangles a hand in Brienne’s hair, and kisses her. Ygritte always told Jon he knew nothing, and it was mostly true. He’s confident on one thought, though: _the gods made these two idiots for one another._


	6. Brienne II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “What? You said everyone knew because King Jaime was so overt about it.” Margaery looks from Sansa to Brienne, “He should ask for your hand.”
> 
> Brienne looks down at her hands, so unlike the dainty ones of the two women across from her. “It’s...not like that any longer,” she almost whispers.
> 
> _I can’t be a queen._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't believe we're at the halfway point with this!

Shouting Brienne’s name means Jaime rushed out of the meeting to catch up with her. She’d been glad to leave the Small Council chamber; Jon Snow and Ser Davos had moved on to another topic where her input wasn’t needed. Negotiating made her uncomfortable, like she was wearing skin that wasn’t her own. Each time they spoke to her, Brienne thought _my father should be here_. 

Yet, Jaime summoned _her_ , not her father.

He stops before her. Half the time, she finds that Jaime’s words and actions don’t align. She can’t parse his intent unless he is _acutely_ overt. Right now, though, she’s confident. _He’s nervous_. 

"I wanted to tell you that I missed you, wench."

She’s surprised enough that she gasps. She’s always reacted to him as such, long before she understood what the reaction meant. Jaime stares at her like he’s a bit amazed to be graced by her company. Brienne used to think he was looking back to King’s Landing, or back to the past and to Cersei.

_Then why’d you tell me to leave?_

"I missed you, too. I never wanted to stay on Tarth," Brienne replies instead. It’s an offering from her heart, instead of a demand about his.

Jaime’s eyes widen just a fraction. _Surely, he knew that I missed him? That I only left because he bid me to?_ Jaime is as beautiful as he ever was; he doesn’t need a crown, or a swordhand, or a Lannister cloak for it to be the truth. 

“I’m glad you’re here,” he says after a moment.

 _I’m glad I’m here, too_ , Brienne opens her mouth to reply, to tell him that she hoped his summons meant more than loading marble on ships. Jaime retreats before Brienne can respond, back through the door of the Small Council chamber. _I love you_ ; she wants to yell it until the words fill Jaime’s ears, and he understands the depth of it. 

Brienne promised herself, long ago at Pennytree, that she would never lie to him again, but the vow doesn’t stop the words from getting stuck somewhere between her head and her lips. She wasn’t even a skilled liar; Ser Goodwin told her she had the same soft heart any maid, and her emotions showed on her face, plain as day.

She knew, even as she was telling the lie in her desperation, that she wasn’t telling it well. 

Jaime scrambled to his feet, looking so taken aback at the sight of her that she momentarily forgotten how dire her situation was. She forgot her broken arm and her cheek she was too afraid to look at. Her heart raced like a horse kicked into a gallop, and she’d felt every bit the stupid girl she knew she was. She convinced herself the lie worked--it was easier than thinking Jaime followed her to his death.

Brienne left King’s Landing, armed with Jaime’s sword and his faith in her. _He trusts me_ , she thought as her journey began, _I mustn’t let him down_. Jaime’s honor lived with her, with the blade he named and gifted to her.

She’d never be a knight, but Jaime thought her worthy of a knightly quest. 

The truth came out of her after not even half a day’s ride. Childishly, Brienne hoped Jaime, much cleverer than her, would have an idea. She hoped at least that he would be furious with her for repaying his faith in such a way.

“You’re a poor liar, wench,” Jaime said to her.

And not only had Jaime not been angry, he’d told her there was nothing to forgive.

Lost in the memory, Brienne stands in the hall, motionless, hand pressed over her racing heart. If anyone happened by, they would find the heir to the Evenstar, leaning against the stone wall blushing like the maiden she hasn’t been for quite some time.

* * *

Brienne isn’t entirely sure about the makeup of Jaime’s Small Council. Jon Snow was the Hand, and Ser Addam Marband was clearly Lord Commander of the Kingsguard. The other two spots were filled Samwell Tarly and Ser Davos Seaworth. Tarly was clearly the Grand Maester, but Ser Davos’s role eludes her.

She meets with Ser Davos early the next morning and decides to just ask.

“Ser, I’m not an expert on the government structure of Westeros,” Brienne drops the ledger of marble yields she’d brought from Tarth onto the table, “but there isn't...enough of you, is there?”

Davos laughs, “Does it not look like we’re part of a mummer’s farce, juggling many plates and hoping they don’t shatter?”

 _A jest_. “I haven’t been here long enough to tell, ser,” she replies.

“We’ve no Master of Coin, Whispers, or Laws,” Davos sits in a chair and opens the ledger.

Brienne nods and sits across from him, “So you’re all doing the job of two men?”

“At least three, if you’re Jon Snow.”

The obvious thing would be to source more trustworthy and competent people, but that’s not so easy. Most of the noble houses had lost heirs, if not been wiped out completely. Tyrion Lannister held the West, and Edric Storm was castellan of Storm’s End until Shireen Baratheon came of age. Willas Tyrell sat at Highgarden. Smaller noble houses might have _no one_ left to rule them.

“Tarth will provide what aid it can.” Brienne’s still unused to speaking for her house. She thought to spend her life devoted to Renly Baratheon, then to finding Sansa Stark, then to die defending Winterfell. Brienne doesn’t like to think of her father’s death, but the Stranger comes for all men; it wouldn’t do to be unprepared. The mantle of the Evenstar is hers to wear when the time comes.

“The marble isn’t a tribute to the crown,” Davos informs her, “What would you ask of us in return?”

As Brienne explains what Tarth needs, she finds herself more confident than she would’ve a year ago. She spent every day for the last year helping people on Tarth rebuild, and the home she ran away from when she was sixteen is much more familiar to her. _I could manage this,_ she thinks, _I might not like it, but I could do it._

“You know your island well,” Davos tells her once they’ve configured some sort of plan for the shipments. “And you’ve some knowledge of ships.”

“Only enough as was needed to live day-to-day.” She could tie of variety of knots, and knew the basics, but she’d never pass muster as a sailor. “Have you been to Tarth?”

Davos smirks, and Brienne remembers he was a pirate before swearing loyalty to Stannis Baratheon. “Aye, but not in a way you’d like to hear about.”

“Pirates are a fact of life,” Brienne replies. Davos had paid the price, or at least what Stannis _thought_ the crime was worth. Many men would’ve hung Davos for his crimes; it didn’t make Brienne feel any warmer toward Stannis.

“Tell me,” Davos says after a brief pause, “What do you think of the king?”

Brienne can’t discern if Davos means her opinion of Jaime personally, or as a ruler. “I told Jaime, before I returned home to Tarth, that I thought he could do good.”

“It seems he believed you.”

“When we got the raven about his coronation, I had to sit down and read the missive thrice.” Brienne remembers the lion sigil stamped in the wax holding the tightly-rolled parchment closed. _Jaime of House Lannister, first of his name_.

Davos laughs, “ _That_ unbelievable?”

“Not because Jaime is unworthy--”

“--Because he’s not a man who craves power.” Davos looks thoughtful, “King Stannis let power consume him; I won’t aid that again.”

“Jaime fears that, I think.”

“Lord Snow does as well.”

In Winterfell, Brienne wouldn’t have thought Jon Snow and Jaime similar, but she can see it now.

Davos must see it as well because he smiles at Brienne and answers, “It makes them wise.”

* * *

Brienne spends the rest of the day with Ser Davos. She takes her evening meal with Pod, who keeps giving her _knowing_ looks that he must deem subtle but really aren’t. Every tenth word out of his mouth involves Jaime Lannister in some form or another.

“Have you seen him since yesterday?”

Brienne sighs, “No. He’s _king_ , Pod. What do you expect? It’s not like Winterfell; he hasn’t time to clash swords with his guests in a practice yard.”

Pod stuffs a hunk of bread in his mouth and looks disgruntled, mumbling something Brienne can’t quite catch. When he’s intelligible again he says, “Ser, _go talk to him_. Knock on his door!”

“It’s not so simple,” Brienne stares at her plate, “He’s not a serving girl from the kitchens; I can’t just go him--there’s _duty_.”

“I hate that word,” Pod replies, standing up, “it’s what everyone hides behind when they’re afraid, or when they abandon you for something they _think_ they should be doing.”

Her former squire leaves, closing the door with enough force that Brienne knows he’s irritated.

Brienne flops back onto her bed; sideways, her feet can stay on the floor and her head is nearly at the opposite end.

Her room at Winterfell had been tiny—space was limited. Brienne was grateful for her too-small bed, and that her room had a fireplace. Even with the pipes from the springs below the castle, she still kept the fire as banked with wood as she could.

The room got smaller, but warmer, when Jaime appeared at her door carrying Widow’s Wail in his arms, his meager belongings contained in a rucksack at his back.

“Care to share your room with the Kingslayer?” He’d given her a winning smile, so filled with artifice that Brienne was immediately wary.

“You’ve your own chambers,” she replied without opening the door more.

“In the barracks,” Jaime replied.

Jaime wasn’t welcome in Winterfell—save for herself, Pod, and Lady Sansa, he had few friends. Lady Sansa’s authority and the Lannister host they arrived with bought him reprieve from outright hostility, but it didn’t engender courtesy.

She’d never actually asked where Jaime slept in the fortnight since they arrived; only that when they were together, he left soon afterwards. In Brienne’s novice mind, that’s just what men did. Jaime touched her with such care, didn’t mind her awkwardness or her scars, it was too much to assume he would stay after the deed was concluded.

“You deserve better.”

Jaime barked a laugh, “I’m lucky my head is attached, wench. At least the people here say ‘Kingslayer’ to my face.”

Brienne wrapped her hand around his elbow, pulled him into the room, and closed the door behind him. Jaime watched her as she took Widow’s Wail and placed it next to Oathkeeper on the small table against the wall. It was the work of a few moments to put Jaime’s things next to hers in the trunk at the foot of the bed. Combined, they barely owned enough for one person.

“Wench, I didn’t expect you to agree.”

“Everyone already knows,” Brienne ducked her head to hide her blush, “And even _before_ , they assumed.”

Jaime touched her chin with his left hand, tilting her head so their eyes met, “I’ve done little but tarnish you.”

 _I don’t regret it_. She couldn’t find the words, so she kissed him instead.

After, Jaime made love to her with a slowness and an affection that Brienne could scarcely believe was meant for her. It was only her name on his lips, though, and Brienne never doubted his mind was with her in the same way his body was. She understood, after the first time, what it meant for Jaime to be intimate with her.

“Y-you can’t leave,” Brienne said after. Something about the boneless, hazy feeling that overcame her made her feel bold. She thought she might learn to combat it, but it hadn’t happened yet.

“Ah,” Jaime replied, light and teasing, “Am I a kept man, now?”

“You _asked_ to bunk with me.”

He chuckled, “I know.”

Brienne learned what Jaime denied himself by leaving after their prior encounters. He wrapped his right arm around her middle and tucked his forehead under her chin. Brienne held him against her and waited for his breathing to even out.

It took a long time, after that, for her to join him in slumber.

* * *

Sansa greets Brienne in the solar of the chambers she’s been assigned. She hugs so tightly that she would squeeze the life out of Brienne if she had the strength.

“It’s good to see you, Queen Sansa.” Brienne isn’t sure whether to bow _after_ the queen of the North threw herself into her arms.

“Stop with the ‘queen’ business,” Sansa replies, holding Brienne at arm’s length, hands on her shoulders. “I hear it all day; I don’t wish to hear it from a friend.”

 _A friend_. The word makes Brienne smile despite herself; when she was a girl, on Tarth, she wished for someone like Sansa--a friend she could laugh with late into the night, or share stories about the handsome husbands they would someday have. All of those girlhood daydreams are long past, now, but the desire for friendship remained.

“Sansa,” Brienne repeats, “You look well.”

The queen smiles at her, “As do you.”

When Brienne and Jaime first found Sansa, she’d been wary of trusting them. Jaime’s presence hadn’t aided matters, but Brienne repeated the oath she swore to Lady Catelyn enough that Sansa eventually believed her and left the Eyrie in their company to travel north to Winterfell. By the end of the journey, Sansa had even warmed to Jaime. Their friendship was an unlikely one, but Brienne supposes they have something in common now.

“How long have you been here?”

“Four days,” Brienne answers, “mostly spent with Ser Davos organizing marble shipments.”

Sansa wrinkles her nose in distaste, “How administrative.”

“I’d rather wield a sword,” Brienne admits, “but that won’t do much good rebuilding a city.”

“Peace is good,” Sansa agrees, “but it gives many people time to complain.”

From Sansa’s letters, Brienne knows that some of the Northern lords resisted a young queen ruling alone, especially with Bran and Rickon returned to Winterfell. Bran said he couldn’t be lord of anything, and deferred to his older sister. Sansa’s only demand was the North be independent. 

“How many marriage proposals have you refused?”

“Seven.” 

It’s not Sansa who answers, but Margaery, who comes out of the next room.

“Lady Margaery,” Brienne stands from where she seated herself on the brocade couch.

“Lady Brienne,” Margaery answers, “Gods, it’s been--”

“When King Jaime and I returned from Harrenhal,” Brienne finishes.

Unflatteringly, Brienne remembers being envious of Margaery after her wedding to Renly. Margaery was fair, and held the attention of everyone in the room. Renly of course, hadn’t looked at either of them.

“That was _years_ ago,” Margaery seats herself next to Sansa, close enough that their skirts brush. “Have you wed?”

“No, I--” she starts, “Three asked my father over the last year. I refused them.”

“Good,” Margaery nods, “No more will we be passed around like pawns to whatever man can reap the most benefit of us.”

Margaery is three years her junior, and had been wed thrice. Sansa had suffered at the hands of Joffrey and Littlefinger, and was wed to Tyrion when she was still a girl. 

“I won’t wed,” Sansa agrees, “Every lord left north of the Twins can ask, and I will refuse them all.”

Margaery takes Sansa’s hand and squeezes it, “A queen has her choice.”

Brienne looks at the two women across from her; Sansa in her Northern-style dress, and Margaery taking full advantage of King’s Landing’s milder climate. They’re still holding hands, and Brienne tries to determine if it means _more_. Sansa’s letters never mentioned it, but Sansa was quite private since her return to Winterfell.

“I don’t think I will, either,” Brienne admits, “I’ve less choices, but I don’t want to be an obstacle someone suffers to get to Tarth.”

“But you and King Jaime,” Margaery blurts, “Sansa told me that at Winterfell the two of you--”

“-- _Margaery,”_ Sansa interjects.

“What? You said _everyone_ knew because King Jaime was so overt about it.” She looks from Sansa to Brienne, “He should ask for your hand.”

Brienne looks down at her hands, so unlike the dainty ones of the two women across from her. “It’s...not like that any longer,” she almost whispers.

_I can’t be a queen._

* * *

A rap at Brienne's door interrupts breaking her fast. The knock is so quiet she almost mistakes it for Pod moving around in the chambers next to hers. She tried her best to ignore _any_ sounds originating from Pod's chambers. 

The girl from the last two nights seemed like she was enjoying herself.

Brienne goes to the door, still stuffing a bite of hard cheese and bread into her mouth. She skipped dinner, too absorbed in ledgers. Tarth needed iron and steel, and it was up to her to decide how much. Ser Davos seemed more than amenable to a fair trade. 

"Jaime." 

She can't mask her surprise; seeing him there takes her back to Winterfell. Jaime's hair is longer, curling against his collarbones. And, like herself, his face is fuller--an indicator of a more reliable diet. More than that, Jaime looks like he just woke up; his hair could use a brushing, and the laces on his tunic are askew. 

_Who does those things for him, now?_ He looked presentable enough during the Small Council meeting two days past. Brienne never got a fair sense of what he could manage one-handed. Sometimes, asking for help seemed like a ruse to get him to touch her.

It worked, everytime.

Jaime shifts from one foot to the other. "Brienne," he says, "good morning."

"Good morning." Exchanging pleasantries with Jaime felt surreal; Brienne didn't know what else to do. 

"I, um," he starts, "I thought we could...talk."

"Alright."

What could they talk about, though? They both missed the other, and there was naught to be done about it. The silence fills the space so fully that it feels like a third person standing between them.

Once, long before she _knew_ Jaime, Brienne might've imagined him skilled at courting or wooing. Someone as beautiful as him surely had the demeanor to accompany it. The man before her is awkward as Brienne herself, and his appearance never seemed a boon in this regard.

He's as charming and insufferable as Brienne had always found him.

"I'd like to dance with you, wench." Some of Jaime's swagger returns; Brienne notices Widow's Wail at his hip. "Our blades miss each other."

Brienne's answering laugh is _almost_ a snort, "Does the king of Westeros want to be beaten so soon after breakfast?"

Jaime's smile makes his eyes crinkle at the corners, " _Someone_ has to keep me humble."

In the practice yard outside Maegor's Holdfast, Brienne asks if Jaime would rather use blunted practice weapons, or to go put on armor. 

"There's no one I trust more than you," he tells her. "If you gut me, I probably earned it."

When Widow's Wail and Oathkeeper meet, blades clanging together in the morning sun, Brienne is overcome with a sense of oneness. Of all the people for her to be so in sync with, it just _had_ to be Jaime Lannister. 

Jaime is more agile than her, as he's always been. Widow's Wail has less reach than Oathkeeper, and Jaime continually tries to close the distance between them to land a strike. They move back and forth across the practice yard. The quality of Jaime's footwork hasn't diminished, nor has the skill he gained with his left hand. 

It comes back to them naturally, as though it hadn't been over a year since they last crossed blades. Brienne never complimented Jaime, but she'd always been impressed by how quickly he adapted to not using his dominant hand.

It's a little different, though; Jaime incorporates flourish or a dodge that Brienne's never seen before. She certainly never taught Jaime any technique--his skill was far beyond any Brienne would ever possess. She'd only been a partner to help him learn again, and to spur him on by telling him he could do it.

"That was different," Brienne calls out to him, "Who have you been training with."

Jaime shrugs, "Jon and Addam. They'll do, but they're no _you_ …"

"Surely they're better than I." Jon was once Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, and Ser Addam was a true knight.

"Objectively, maybe, but it's not about skill," Jaime wipes his right sleeve across his forehead; he's not wearing the gold hand today. "Have you improved?"

Brienne shakes her head, "I've only really fought Pod since I left for Tarth."

"I'm an old man. Has Pod been getting more practice with a sword of a different type?"

A twinge of embarrassment floods her, "Pod is...popular."

"As he was as Winterfell. The boy has more experience with women that I ever will."

It always seemed, to Brienne at least, that Jaime had _plenty_ of experience. Or maybe it was just that she was at a wild disadvantage. Quickly, Brienne finds herself getting distracted, so she holds up Oathkeeper again.

"Do you yield, ser?"

 _"Yes,"_ he shuts his eyes for just a moment; the tone of his voice transports Brienne to a much more intimate memory. When Jaime opens them, he looks ready to fight. "But not in this."

"Good."

The second round brings them closer together. Distracted, Brienne lets Jaime back her into a corner. She ducks at the last second, dodging away from him. Jaime turns, more deftly than she would manage, and steps back away toward the middle of the practice yard.

Jaime's on her again in a manner of seconds. He's close enough that Brienne can feel the heat coming off of him, can see the way his hair is darkened with sweat at his temples. _He's too close_. It's like the energy around them shifts, and Brienne _hopes_ , probably futilely, that Jaime has the sense to _stop_. 

He lets Widow's Wail drop from his hand into the dust at their feet. Brienne spares half a thought that he _probably_ shouldn't do that to a Valyrian steel sword, before Jaime puts his hand at the base of her head, tangled in her sweaty hair.

"Brienne."

 _Don't_ and _please_ enter her mind in tandem. If Jaime kisses her, it'll be the fall she can't recover from. Duty, his and hers both, is the only thing keeping Brienne from going to him.

Duty must not be on Jaime's mind because he crashes his mouth against hers, tightening his hand in her hair like he expects her to bolt. A small part of her _feels_ like pushing Jaime away and running as far as her legs would carry her. Instead, she drops Oathkeeper to lie beside Widow's Wail.

 _It's hopeless_.

Jaime's fervent desperation is too familiar--from the way he presses himself against her, to the way he throws his right arm around her neck to join the left. He kisses her like a day apart never passed between them, stopping only to draw in a shaky breath before claiming her lips again.

He tastes the same, _feels_ the same, and Brienne is helpless to do anything but hold Jaime to her and answer him in kind.

"Duty," she gasps when he finally relents to press their foreheads together.

"Duty?" He sounds dazed.

"T-Tarth," she stammers, and what sounded logical before doesn't so now. "And you're _king_ , we can't--"

"I didn't take on this fucking job to be kept from you."

"You sent me away!"

"Because you _hate_ attention, and politics, and courtly bullshit."

Brienne opens her eyes and pushes Jaime back enough to look at him, surprised at fury in his expression. "You do, too."

"But it was the _right_ thing to do! Your damn voice in my head told me so. _Do good_."

"That's not--" 

_We’re further apart than we’ve ever been._ Duty has kept them apart before, pulled them and pushed them in opposite directions. Winterfell was an interlude; their time together melted away like the snow about the keep, absorbed back into the ground and never to reappear as it had been.

"It _is_ though; it's the _only_ reason," Jaime yells, "You made then think I could be a fucking king."

"Y-you can be; you _are_ \--"

"Then why don't I have anything I want?" Jaime lets go of her, and Brienne misses the contact immediately.

"Duty requires sacrifice," Brienne hates the words even as she says them.

"Fuck sacrifice," Jaime stomps further away from her. "I don't _hate_ being king, but I will if it keeps me from the one person I want."

"Jaime--"

"My duty is to _you_ , Brienne. More than any Lannister, more than every fucking lord and smallfolk in this damn kingdom."

Before she can order her brain into any semblance of response, Jaime leaves Widow's Wail on the ground and leaves her standing there.


	7. Jaime III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jon doesn't answer, and Jaime wonders if his Hand is asleep. The eighth bell rang not long ago, and he's called on Jon with work much later than this. A second rap yields no response, so Jaime tries the doorknob. It twists, and he pushes it open slightly, stepping into the room. 
> 
> "Jon," Jaime calls out, "I hope you're not with lady. Although, I'm pretty sure you're only intimate with paperwork."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Man, the response to the last chapter was AMAZING. Thank you soooo much for all the lovely comments! We're moving into the back half of the narrative now. The next three chapters occur largely simultaneously, which makes for some perilous cliffhangers, particularly between this chapter and Brienne's, and I am not sorry.
> 
> I added Satin/Jon to the main pairing tag for the story because it's become A Thing. If anyone happens to ship this rarepair as much as I suddenly do, I wrote a one-shot, [Call Me Maybe](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22397440). It's attached (loosely) to my other story, _One Good, Honest Kiss_ , and it's kinda a PWP, but I figure fics for rarepairs are like unicorns, so shameless self promotion!

"Are you ill?"

Jaime recognizes Jon Snow's voice, but doesn't lift his head from where it's resting against the bed linens. He stomped back from the practice yard and flopped, facedown, on the bed.

 _His_ bed, that he will sleep in, _alone_. He thought he did the right thing by sending Brienne home, thought she'd be _happier_ on her island, away from the politics of King's Landing, however much Jaime tried to reduce that aspect. It would only worsen, too--as stability increased, people would find time scheme once again.

"No," Jaime replies.

His Hand's footsteps approach the bed, "Then why are you in bed before midday? The party from Dorne will be here soon."

"Are you my secretary?"

He hears Jon exhale; it sounds a bit grumpy, "It seems that's what's needed."

Jaime rolls onto his back; Jon has his arms crossed and is scowling at him. Actually, that might be a neutral expression for a Stark. 

"I'm getting up." He doesn't move.

"I'm sure you are."

Jon's scowl reminds him of Brienne's, which reminds him of their encounter in the practice yard not an hour past. He left Widow's Wail, but no matter their conflict, he's certain she will collect it. 

He's silent for long enough that Jon continues, "...What happened?"

"I had a sword fight with Brienne."

"Is that unusual?"

"No."

"Did you insult her?" 

Jaime sits up and levels Jon with the most intimidating Lannister expression he can muster. _Look like Father looked at you when you told him you were remaining in the Kingsguard_. He'd imagined that expression when he bluffed about putting Edmure Tully's newborn in a trebuchet. It worked, then, but he'd had the higher ground and hadn't been pouting on his bed.

"No," he says.

"You kissed her." Jaime can't tell if it's a question or a statement.

"Is that a guess?"

"I saw, from the battlements." Jon Snow is a _terrible_ liar, "And it's good, right? You love her."

"I _do_ love her."

Hearing Jon say it so easily incenses Jaime. It's easy enough to tell someone _else._ Jon should try walking up to someone _he_ loves and confessing his feelings. He won't find it so easy, then.

"Then say that!" Jon raises his voice just a fraction.

" _You_ try it, if it's so damn easy. Brienne pushed me away, repeating some shit about _duty_ , then I yelled at her."

Jon throws his hands in the air, "I just-- _how_ did that even happen?"

The judgment on Jon's face is _worse_ now, if such a feat is possible. Jaime's never actually explained his feelings to anyone. Jon looks less than willing. Being a king needs _some_ boon; Jon looks like a man who's used to suffering.

"I sent her back to Tarth," Jaime explains.

Jon, clearly in for the long haul, sits down next to Jaime on the bed. "Does Ser Brienne usually heed your commands?"

"Never," Jaime laughs, remembering all the times Brienne obstinately refused him. "But she did that time."

"Why did you send her home?"

"She detests politics. I thought, if I was going to do _this_ ," Jaime gestures out the window, "that we would _both_ hate it, but she didn't need to suffer it with me."

Jon lets out a rare, dry laugh, "It seems we all have that in common."

"Men-- _people_ who love this shit shouldn't have it. The suffering keeps us humble."

"Did you _tell_ Ser Brienne this?"

"I wasn't sure how to."

"...You just said it to me."

"I thought, if she knew I wanted her to stay, that she would."

Jon's expression softens a bit to one Jaime rarely sees, only when he talks about his family, or the Wildling girl, or that whore-turned-steward. "You wish for her happiness."

"Of course. She's the one _good_ thing I've ever known." 

Jon's watching him, but glances away when Jaime makes eye contact. "Have you considered that Brienne might _want_ to be here? That being with you might be important enough to bear with something she doesn't like. She's heir to her house; even if she'd prefer not to, she can't escape authority."

"Would you stay in a place, or a role, that you misliked just because the person who loved you wanted you there?"

"Absolutely," Jon replies, "if I cared about the person enough." He looks embarrassed, the faint coloring on his cheeks present again.

"Oh." Jaime sees a connection he'd never made. "I did that, for Cersei. _Gods_ , Jon, I can't do that to Brienne."

"It's not like that," he wrings his hands together in his lap, "If it's a choice."

"It _was_ a choice, made out of love. Or what I _thought_ was love." 

Cersei never, ever loved him as he loved her; she only saw him as an extension of herself.

"Can't you tell the difference? Don't you trust that Brienne can, too?"

And, Jaime realizes that he _can_. He could ask Brienne for something, and she could refuse him. She _had_ refused him, and Jaime would never deny her that. It was _nothing_ like Cersei.

"What would _you_ want?"

"I'm not Brienne," Jon deflects.

"I'm king; answer me."

Jon looks a bit stricken, "I'd want to be told I was loved, and asked to stay."

* * *

Sansa makes a finer queen than Jaime does a king. Even silently sitting across from him at a table covered with a map of Westeros, she has more regal bearing in the expression on her face than Jaime has in his entire body. No matter how adamantly Jon said Jaime looked like a king, no matter how he dressed himself, Jaime never saw it in the mirror.

It doesn't concern him-- _looking_ like a king didn't mean horse shit. Half a decade ago, Jon might have had a point, but the Jaime Lannister of then would've been a _terrible_ fucking king. He would've been Cersei's puppet.

Sansa watches him, expression placid, as he sits down. She waits for him to speak, hands folded primly in her lap. The stare, so like how her mother looked at him in Riverrun's dungeon, must make the blood of the Northern lords turn to ice in their veins.

And if it doesn't--it _should._

Jaime started taking Sansa seriously when they retrieved her from the Eyrie. He'd been many things to her since then--part of the family that fractured hers, her protector, her guest, and now, _somehow_ , her equal.

"King Jaime," Sansa rises from her seat and curtsies more politely than Jaime feels he deserves. 

"Please, sit," Jaime gestures with the gold hand to the chair, "there's no need to play at niceties with me."

"I suppose not," Sansa replies before sitting down again, much more relaxed than before. "You, of all people, don't require posturing."

Jaime sits across from her, " _Gods_ , I don't."

Sansa giggles, her composure slipping, "How fares your kingship?"

"Jon is muddling through."

She continues laughing, the youthfulness she hides bubbling through. "While you do nothing?"

"You've the right of it. I'm merely a figurehead; the Hand is the head."

"My brother has sense," Sansa pauses, "about _some_ things, but not others."

"Less sense than you, but more than I."

"The two of you are well-matched in your foolishness."

Even with their increased responsibility and authority, talking with Sansa is as it's always been. Jaime would happily welcome Sansa onto any council or committee; she's clever, observant and has a slyness that Jaime envies. For all the people who used her as a pawn, passing her between them, she picked up their strategies and employs them in pursuit of _her_ aims.

Jon blessed Jaime with a written agenda for the meeting. Sansa smiles wryly at her brother's handwriting, and the two of them tackle the list in a systematic fashion. With other rulers, Jaime might need to break through layers of niceties, to speak through an advisor or ambassador to accomplish things. He can talk to directly to Sansa without any bullshit.

An hour passes, then two, and Jaime finds himself immersed enough in work that he forgets about making an ass of himself in front of Brienne. Someone brings them food, and Jaime realizes Sansa shares his habit of neglecting meals when focused.

"Do you enjoy being king?"

The question surprises Jaime. His father didn't care if he found enjoyment or fulfillment being his heir. No one asked Kingsguard if they enjoyed the white cloak. Cersei only cared for his happiness if it aligned with her own.

"I'm not sure it matters." He's not sure his happiness has _ever_ mattered. "We were short a king, so someone had to fill the role."

"But it didn't have to be you."

Jaime chuckles dryly, "If _I_ was considering taking the role, Queen Sansa, I think we know that's not true."

Sansa laughs into her hand, "No other king would have granted the North independence."

"I never understood the resistance to that. You want to take a large section of land off my hands and rule it for me. What king would refuse that?" 

The North was cold, remote, and untamed. Jaime never grasped it fully even while he was there. He understands now why every king before him seemed to have such a tenuous grasp on it. Winterfell was fine for a visit, and for burying himself under a pile of furs with Brienne. 

No Southerner was meant to rule it; giving it to Sansa was the only sound course. They can collaborate, and _she_ can deal with the weather and the wary, distrustful Northern lords. 

" _All_ of them, if I remember my history correctly."

"Idiots, the lot of them."

"I don't think either of us ever imagined ourselves in these roles," Sansa looks thoughtful. "Neither of my parents imagined me as anything other than a bride. A queen, if I was lucky, but only an accessory."

Jaime knows all too well the feeling of being an accessory, so he nods, "You enjoy ruling."

Sansa gives him a sly smile, "I like being free. I've been used by others for too long."

 _What Cersei always wanted_. Sansa earned it through confidence, through showing her people she cared about them and would fight for them.

"The North is loyal to you," he tells Sansa, "you've won their affection."

"Do you not think you haven't done the same?" 

Jaime doesn't know, truly--he spent so many years expecting whispers and snide remarks that even after a year, the people in King's Landing cheering or waving still seems directed at someone else. 

"I pretended not to care for so long, but I hope I have."

"Do you find it lonely?" 

"Do you not?"

"My home was returned to me; my siblings are there." Sansa blushes the slightest bit, "And Margaery. I've been blessed to have the people I care about near me."

 _Margaery_. Jaime is curious, but he won't ask the Queen in the North about her lover, regardless of their rapport. 

"I have Jon, I suppose."

Sansa laughs again, looking as young as she is. She stands, rounds the table, and lays a hand on his arm, "You have _many_ people, King Jaime, don't forget about then, lest they vanish."

* * *

Jaime has a hard time asking for help, which is unfortunate because he needs _a lot_ of it. Whether it's writing letters, fastening his armor, saddling a horse, or wading through reconstruction and supply reports that pour in from all corners of Westeros. He's no scholar--Jon reads at twice the pace he does, nevermind the fact that there is more work than the two of them could ever possibly get through. 

It's Tywin Lannister's fault that Jaime struggles to ask-- _help_ equals _weakness_. It's fine to order a task done by someone lesser, but only because the task is beneath him, not because Jaime would struggle to do so. 

A squire or a steward could lay out his clothes, but Jaime shouldn't need someone to read aloud to him. 

Once, Jaime thought knew his strengths--his place was with a sword in his hand, or with his sister. Those were the things he derived meaning from. Finding his place after the loss of those things took a lot of searching.

"I'm your Hand," Jon told him the first time he caught Jaime taking on too much of a workload.

"And I'm the King."

"You have...half a Small Council," Jon replied. "When I was Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, I trusted men to do the jobs I gave him."

"...And they killed you."

"Yes, but _not_ the men I trusted," Jon looked exasperated. "And I'm not going to to stab you, no matter how grating you are."

_An effective king delegates tasks._

So, Jaime takes the latest pile of reports, tucks them under his arm, and goes to the chambers Jon chose. The golden hand, which seemed like such a grand idea when he commissioned it, hadn't proved to be that useful. It chafed and made his wrist bitterly cold in the winter. It couldn't lift anything. It _was_ good for hitting things, though, including people and doors. Jaime uses it now to rap on Jon's chamber door. It's a more telling sign that announcing his presence. 

Jon doesn't answer, and Jaime wonders if his Hand is asleep. The eighth bell rang not long ago, and he's called on Jon with work _much_ later than this. A second rap yields no response, so Jaime tries the doorknob. It twists, and he pushes it open slightly, stepping into the room. 

"Jon," Jaime calls out, "I hope you're not with lady. Although, I'm pretty sure you're only intimate with paperwork."

Despite how Robert Baratheon behaved, being king _or_ Hand didn't leave much time to take a lover. Which is why Jaime is _quite_ shocked to find Jon Snow pressed against the wall beside his fireplace, being _very_ thoroughly kissed by a dark-haired someone. The someone is shorter by half a head, and has their hands curled around Jon's shoulders.

 _When did he find a girl?_ Jaime feels like they've spent nearly every hour together for the last year. Until Brienne arrived, Jaime had been living like a fucking septon. Then, it occurs to Jaime that it might _not_ be a girl. How many times was he mistaken for Cersei from behind until he was a man grown?

Well, Jon _looks_ like he's having a good time.

Exiting unnoticed isn't an option, so Jaime clears his throat dramatically. The pair freeze, and Jon makes eye contact with him. Jaime has _never_ seen such an expression of abject horror on his Hand's face. 

His paramour doesn't notice immediately, and Jon taps him on the shoulder with increasing insistence. 

"You're so _impatient_."

 _Ah_ , Jaime thinks, _not a woman._

"No," Jon replies, sounding a bit choked, "The _king--"_ To be fair, if Brienne had him pushed against the wall in a similar fashion, Jaime's sure he'd sound much the same. 

_"Oh,"_ the youth tilts his head and turns enough that Jaime can make out some of his features in profile--Jaime would call him _pretty_. 

_So_ that’s _what Jon is interested in._ He’ll have to tease Jon about it later.

He lets Jon go and leans against the wall next to him. Jon looks a bit like he wants the Stranger to come and take him to the afterlife to spare him the conversation that's to come. Jaime feels like he walked in on two betrothed teens caught fucking before their wedding feast. 

Jaime drops the ledgers under his arm onto Jon's desk, "You seem like you're having _way_ more fun than can be found in any discussion of grain stores." 

"Probably," Jon blurts.

His frankness makes Jaime laugh hard enough that he has to lean forward and rest his hand on his knees. "I'll leave you to it, then."

"No," Jon pushes himself off the wall, features a mask of professionalism. Jaime admires his ability to comport himself so quickly. "Work is duty "

" _Ugh,"_ Jaime scoffs, "I tire of that word; if you'd rather spend your night fucking, that paperwork will still exist in the morning."

Jon's paramour starts laughing, "My lord, it's fine. I was planning on staying; we can talk tomorrow." 

The weight of _something_ passes between the two of them--a shared history, perhaps, told through a glance. _Whoever_ this person is, he's not someone Jon picked up on the Street of Silk. Not that Jaime can imagine Jon picking up a whore.

Jaime opens the door to the hall and looks at which Kingsguard is suffering standing watch in the hall. 

"Ser Loras!"

Loras glares at him, but replies, "Yes?"

"Jon has a guest; please find him suitable chambers. There's not an inn in the city I'd yet consider liveable."

"Of course."

Jaime turns back to Jon, who's still leaning against the wall awkwardly. 

"Satin," Jon says, "tomorrow."

"Tomorrow," Satin repeats, smiling.

Satin bows at them both and walks calmly out the door to follow Loras to some unused chamber. There's a hundred choices.

Jaime smirks at his Hand, "So _that's_ Satin?"

"That's Satin."

"He's...not what I expected."

"You were expecting something?" Jon very much sounds like he _doesn't_ want Jaime to answer that. 

Jaime shrugs, "I definitely _wasn't_ expecting to find you, of all people, canoodling."

"Why shouldn't I," Jon crosses his arms, "I saw _you_ doing the same!"

"You were _spying_ on Brienne and me. I didn't take you for a voyeur." 

"It wasn't on purpose."

"And neither was mine."

"You opened the door to _my_ chambers when I didn't answer your knock!" 

There's no truly valid way to respond to that, so Jaime huffs and says, "Kings don't need to knock."

Jon, still red in the face, goes to the desk and rounds up the ledgers Jaime dropped, "If we're going to work, let's do so."

* * *

The sky is turning peach with the dawn by the time Jaime's head hits the pillow. Jon, probably to compensate for his embarrassment, powers through all the paperwork until he's nodding off in the chair.

"Go to _bed_ ," Jaime tells him, "I'm too fucking old to stay up this late--early. _Whatever_."

"You're not my mother," Jon replies.

"That'd make me a Stark," Jaime replies, "So thank the gods I'm not." 

Jon doesn't even give a surly response, which means he's truly tired. "Fine."

He's half out the door before Jaime calls out, "Get some beauty sleep for when you talk to Satin!"

"I'll talk to Satin as soon as you talk to Brienne!" 

Jon rounds the corner down the hall before Jaime can respond. He knows what he needs to do, and clearly everyone else does, too. It's hard, though--whenever he tries to express his feelings to Brienne, it goes like it did the training yard the day before. 

_I love her._ He can say it to himself; he's thought it a million times. He's said milder variations of it.

_I miss you._

_I need you._

Jaime never told Sansa this, assuming it wouldn't help his case or engender any favor with the Northern lords who had every reason to distrust a Lannister in their midst, but Jaime rode north because Brienne was set on doing so. 

He'd failed to protect everyone and everything else that was important to him, and he wouldn't let Brienne endanger herself without being there to watch her back. Jaime couldn't protect her with a blade any longer; Brienne was _very_ good when they'd fought in the Riverlands, and he had two hands then. Now, she would outstrip him in any earnest combat. There's other ways to protect someone, ways that Jaime was only then learning. Jaime could watch her, protect her with coin or influence. He could give his life for hers, could protect her by distancing himself from her if needed.

When the Others started attacking, Jaime fought beside her and did his damnedest to keep track of her, to be her shield and care for her after. The snow and the muck and the dark made battling at Winterfell even worse shit than just the cold. Jaime lost track of Brienne, once, and when the fighting ended, his heart tried to claw its way out of his chest at the thought of finding her corpse in a pile of snow. 

_Not Brienne_ , Jaime repeated over and over, growing more frantic as he searched. _Not before me._ He found her, eventually, flat on her back in a snowdrift, the breastplate of the armor he'd gifted her so long ago dented. There was no visible blood, but that didn't mean--

Frantic, Jaime dropped into the snow next to her, touching her mud-stained cheek. He remembers saying her name, over and over, the only prayer he still knew how to utter. Fitting because Brienne is the only person he'd _ever_ pray for. The gods can abandon _everyone_ , but they should keep watch over Brienne.

Brienne stirred, eventually, eyes fluttering open. _So blue._ The thought crossed Jaime's mind nearly every time he looked at her. It took Brienne a few moments until her gaze focused on him, and Jaime wanted to weep in relief.

"Can you stand?"

Brienne nodded.

Fueled by sheer adrenaline, Jaime pulled her out of the snow and walked her, arm around her shoulder, back to her room--the room he'd insinuated himself into weeks ago. Brienne winced with every movement as Jaime gingerly divested her of her armor. The two of them were silent until she was down to just her tunic and breeches.

Jaime pressed his fingers against her collarbone, and Brienne tried to hide her wince. It didn't work, and Jaime pulled the tunic aside.

"Just bruising," Brienne gasped, the first words spoken between them since they'd entered the room. "I don't think it's broken."

Seeing her seated on her bed, alive and breathing, caused something to break in Jaime. Brienne was _strong_ , stronger than he would ever be. Losing her would be worse than the loss of his hand; Brienne was just as much a part of him.

"I thought you were _dead_."

She smiled the tiniest bit, "I did as well for a moment. I think it will take more than that."

 _No_. It might not--people died in so many stupid and accidental ways.

Jaime threw himself at her, arms around her middle, forehead pressed against her uninjured collarbone. 

" _Brienne._ " He could manage no other words, and realized quickly enough that he was weeping. Brienne noticed it, too, surely from the wet patch on her shoulder. She only tightened her arms around him.

"I'm fine."

"But you might not have been."

"It's a war."

He shook his head against her shoulder, "You live past this."

Brienne was silent for a long time. Then, she said, "Then you do as well."

Jaime's life had always been bound to Cersei's--to be born and to die as one. Brienne's words didn't feel like that; they felt like being cared for, not consumed. 

"I--" he started, "I don't want to lose you." _I love you_. Jaime couldn't say it, even as he cried into her shoulder.

The memory gets Jaime out of bed, mid-morning, rumpled from his half-hearted attempt at sleep. He changes clothes and splashes water on his face. He doesn't look in the mirror; Brienne has seen him covered in his own shit and vomit, needing to brush his hair won't phase her.

Jaime can't explain why he's so determined, why the words are ready to leap from his lips into being. It's time, though--he's exhausted all other variations, and nothing can progress between them until one of them bridges the gap.

Brienne looks surprised when she opens her door. They hadn't seen one another since their argument the morning prior.

"Brienne," Jaime feels utterly calm, like holding a blade and _knowing_ what he was meant for, "I love you."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bring on the screaming! I'd love to know your thoughts.


	8. Jon III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I think I heard him introduce himself to another person at the table. The name was peculiar, though. A fabric--linen? No, that’s not a name.” Another pause; another dagger flip. “Silk? That’s not a name, either.”
> 
> Jon’s stomach does a flip and feels like a rock has been dropped in it simultaneously.
> 
> “Satin,” he supplies when Arya seems unlikely to list more fabric types.
> 
> Then, she’s grinning, “That’s the one!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I LOVED all the comments on last week's chapter! I am working on responding to them all.❤️
> 
> This week, it's the Jon and Satin chapter! When I started writing this fic, I didn't think they would be the first smut, but nevertheless, it's what happened. My experience writing smut between two men is SUPER limited. As in, this is the first ever.

“There’s someone in town who knows you.”

Jon jumps what feels like a foot in the air at the voice; it’s Arya, seated in the windowsill, flipping her Valyrian steel dagger. She catches it by the handle each time. He’d entered a random room to try and get a quarter-hour alone because he’s been talking to people  _ all _ damn day.

“Arya, how did you know where I was?”

His sister shrugs, “Just did.”

_ That’s not an answer.  _ There’s no point in asking Arya for a better explanation--she’ll give him that smirk she wears in lieu of an answer.

“Fine,” Jon replies.

Arya starts laughing, “You don’t even  _ ask _ anymore!”

“Is there a point?”

“Not really, no.”

“Repeat the first thing you said.”

“I was at an inn and heard someone talking about you.”

“That doesn’t seem unusual. I’m the Hand of the King,” Jon replies, “People gossip about whether it’s true that I’m a Targaryen.”

“I’ve heard all that,” Arya shakes her head, “This person  _ knows  _ you.”

Jon can’t decide if Arya is baiting him by being deliberately obtuse. He crosses his arms and scowls, hoping she’ll continue.

“You want to know the context?  _ Fine _ . He said he knew you from the Night’s Watch.”

_ A mystery _ . Jon cycles through the possibilities; there’s only a few viable choices, after he eliminates those who fell in battle, and those he hung after they killed him. No Free Folk would journey this far south, either.

Jon’s never liked riddles or guessing games; Arya does, though--she’s smiling while he turns over the problem in his mind. “Does he have a name?”

Arya sighs dramatically, “Most men do.”

He’s going to shake her, in a moment, from frustration. Instead, he sighs and says, “Did you happen to catch it?”

She flips the dagger twice before she deigns to answer, “I think I heard him introduce himself to another person at the table. The name was peculiar, though. A fabric--linen? No, that’s not a name.” Another pause; another dagger flip. “Silk? That’s not a name, either.”

Jon’s stomach does a flip and feels like a rock has been dropped in it simultaneously.

“Satin,” he supplies when Arya seems unlikely to list more fabric types.

Then, she’s grinning, “That’s the one!”

Jon doesn’t want to give Arya a window to tease him because she’ll take it all the way to Braavos and back. He also hates the way his heart is thumping out of his chest. It’s different than the feeling Jaime generates--the warmth of a memory, rather than a vision of something that can’t come to pass.

_ Why would Satin come here? _

“Who names a child that?” Arya continues, “And how does someone with that name end up at the Night’s Watch?”

“Arya,” Jon doesn’t answer her question, “can you take me to him?”

His sister shrugs, “Sure, why not? I can ask him where he got such an odd name.”

* * *

The inn is a new one--near Flea Bottom, but not quite in it. Jon would scold Jaime for wandering through King’s Landing so unprotected, but between, Ghost, Longclaw and Arya’s general lethality, Jon figures they’re safer than they would be with guards. The direwolf trails along beside them, and people give them a wide berth. Arya looks wistfully at Ghost sometimes; Jon wonders if she’s thinking of Nymeria.

Jon doesn’t really feel that threatened by the people of the city. If Jaime can kiss babies and take food from carts, Jon can walk into an inn to see--

Satin.

Playing a game of cyvasse with a man wearing the uniform of the City Watch. Jon can’t tell who’s winning from this distance, but it’s probably  _ not _ Satin. Satin never won at cards, or dice, or drawing lots. He’s clean-shaven, like when he first arrived at the Wall, and his hair is tied low at the base of his neck.

He still has those damned doe  _ eyes _ \--Jon always felt like Satin looked  _ through _ him. He can remember the feel of Satin’s dark curls, of his delicate features. Satin looks like he  _ always _ looks--too pretty for the company he’s keeping. 

Jon stares long enough that Arya starts to snigger; she’ll assume Jon is swooning. He won’t deny the attraction. Satin caught his eye before he even knew it was happening, but that’s not entirely, or even mostly, the problem.

_ I have no idea what to say to him.  _

Satin was someone he didn’t think he’d see again. There’s some part of him that desires things he knows can’t stay his--it’s easier knowing a thing is beyond him. Ygritte was dead; Jaime belonged with Brienne. Satin, though, Satin was--

“Sansa used to make a face like that when reading about knights,” Arya pokes him in the side, “I never thought the two of you looked much alike.”

“Shut up,” Jon bites back, and he might as well be a boy of ten for how mature he sounds. 

He must be louder than he intends because Satin looks up, and their eyes meet. Satin excuses himself from his game and stands from the table. Jon has little time to formulate  _ what _ he’s going to say before Satin is before him.

“Lord Commander,” Satin bows slightly, greets Jon like they’re at the Castle Black; they’re  _ not _ , though, and the greeting feels wrong.

“No longer,” Jon replies, “The man who bore that title is dead.”

A thoughtful expression crosses Satin’s features, like he’s puzzling out what the next step is. “Of course,” he replies, “Lord Snow, then?”

_ Too distant _ . Jon was called that, in mocking, once, and then in respect from the people at Winterfell. It wasn’t even accurate any longer, not that he wants to be named a Targaryen.

“Jon,” he stumbles over the words, “I think we’re too--that we’re past formalities.”

Satin smiles, “Jon, then.”

Arya looks between them, and if she notices the tension, she overlooks it. “You’ve got to tell me,  _ where _ did you get that name?”

* * *

“Somehow,” Satin says when they’re away from Arya’s knowing gaze and probing questions, “You made yourself  _ more _ famous.”

Jon’s answer is a sullen grunt that has Satin laughing, “Hand of the King  _ and _ secretly a Targaryen. Never a dull moment with you.”

“I’d like a dull moment.” A moment that was  _ his _ , where no one would ask anything of him. “Satin...why have you come?” Jon hopes the question doesn’t sound accusatory.

“I went back to Oldtown,” Satin bends down to pet Ghost behind his ears. He  _ always  _ liked Satin; Jon thought that was a good sign from the beginning. “When news reached of  _ you _ being Hand to a Lannister king, I thought I should see it for myself. It took a few months, though.”

“How...have you been?”

Satin brightens at the question, “Well. I, um, took a position as a steward at a merchant’s house. It turns out mentioning being steward for the Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch makes you look reliable. I even played at being a guard a few times.”

_ He didn’t go back to a brothel. _ For all he whined about the cold, Satin seemed happy to put that past him when they were at Castle Black.

“ _ Good _ , that’s--I’m glad to hear it,” Jon answers, “Why come all this way, though? Surely your employer…”

“Left for Volantis. I had time, so I thought I’d come here.”

What Jon hears is  _ he came to see me _ , and that’s a dangerous path to tread. Jon tries to remember if anyone, anywhere, has ever journeyed somewhere just for him. He looks Satin in the eye, but Satin looks back at Ghost, avoiding Jon’s gaze.

“That’s...a long journey.”

“It is,” Satin replies, “Maybe a foolish one.”

“I’m certain no one has ever made such a journey for my company.”  _ No, people were more in the habit of sending me away. _ Then, because he can’t stop himself, even though it’s not his business, “When you were my steward, we--”

_ Fucked. _ Although Jon won’t call it that, it’s too harsh, but all the other terms feel wrong--too soft, or too laden with sentiment or commitment.

Satin catches his meaning and outright laughs, “No. I don’t make a habit of that.”

Jon has no right to it, but Satin’s words uncoil a knot deep in his stomach. He thinks of what he told Jaime, of wanting to be singular to another person, even if only for a night, or a fortnight, or a few cycles of the moon.

"That's...good,” Jon says lamely, “You shouldn’t just...do that.”

"I haven't met many admirable men,” Satin stands, “And I've only ever chosen one for myself."

_ Chosen. _

And that's what Jon wants, isn't it?

Mayhaps Satin is just flattering him--he certainly knows how to. When Satin gets close enough that the familiar perfume invades Jon senses, he shuts his eyes like it will halt the oncoming invasion. It's a stupid action, like closing his eyes as an army of Freefolk ran at the Wall--all it means is that whatever's coming will blindside him.

Satin kisses him, a hand on his jaw to tilt his head down so they meet. Jon wants to run away and get closer all at once. He backs up until he hits the wall, until Satin is pressed against him, until he can’t think of anything but the kiss. No one has touched him kindly in over a year, closer to two, and Jon falls to the gesture immediately. 

Ironically, he had more intimacy while under oath  _ not _ to.

Jon has no idea what Satin is thinking. He decides to ask as soon as Satin stops kissing him, to know what Satin meant by journeying halfway across Westeros for a former lover, for someone he used to serve under. 

Then, Jaime Lannister, looking golden, and  _ perfect _ , and utterly confused, busts through his chamber door.

* * *

“Jon, you  _ must  _ be joking.”

“Why would I make a jest like that?”

“Good point,” Sam makes a sober expression, “You’ve never been terribly witty.”

“Fuck you.”

“...And  _ never _ at your own expense.”

Jon sighs heavily; he sort of wants to smack his head against the table, but they’re in one of the newly-constructed clinics. A group of maesters-in-training and nurses witnessing the Hand of the King beating his head against the table  _ might _ smurge his reputation.

“I didn’t tell you so you could mock me,” Jon grumbles.

Sam, counting rows of gauze and tinctures in a crate, looks up, “Then why  _ did _ you tell me?”

“I don’t know. Solidarity, maybe?”

“Bring me that crate,” Samwell gestures with a tilt of his head; Jon obeys. “What happened after Satin left?”

“...We looked at crop yield reports from the Reach until dawn.” He places the crate on the work table, and the bottles inside clank against one another. Jon spent half the time distracted, thinking of Oldtown and flowers.

“Not what I’d call a romantic atmosphere.”

_ “Sam.” _

Sam lowers his voice, “What is it that you  _ want?” _

“I don’t think that matters.”

Sam looks like he might not agree, “Have you talked to Satin? He came a long way to see you.”

“I worked until dawn, slept for two hours, and then came here,” Jon lets his eyes fall shut, “I told him we’d speak later.”

“...How much  _ speaking  _ will actually be accomplished?”

“None, because I’ve no idea what to say to him.”

“Get the next crate,” Sam points. “Well, are you glad to see him?”

Jon moves the crate gingerly from one table to the other; when he answers Sam’s question, he’s just as careful. “I missed his company.”

“Enough to smash your faces together, apparently.” Jon glowers, but it has little effect on Sam, who just shrugs as if to say he expects such behavior. “You seemed...close, back at Castle Black.”

“Satin was a fine member of the Night’s Watch.”

“Your bullshit is  _ really _ strong sometimes,” Sam says. “Jon, you’ve been pining like this for  _ months _ . It might be time to move on.”

“To Satin?”

“To someone who will  _ see _ you. Unless you plan on telling the king?”

Every hair on Jon’s body stands on end at the thought of  _ that _ .  _ “Gods,  _ no. Sam. Ser Brienne is all Jaime sees.”

Sam looks at him thoughtfully, “You’re...not jealous, are you?”

Jon smiles wryly, “No. I only understand what she must feel; I’d never seek to part them.”

“You’ve created a problem with no solution.”

“I seem drawn to those.”

* * *

“I don’t think anyone’s  _ ever _ poured me wine before.” Satin seems amused at the role reversal.

Jon doesn’t even  _ want _ wine; it’s just a courtesy. A guest in his chambers--get them wine.

“You’re my guest.”

Satin chuckles; where someone else might nettle Jon, he replies, “A highborn client is one thing, but a guest of the Hand of the King--my mother is turning over in her grave.”

“That’s not--we’re sworn brothers.”

“My lord-- _ Jon _ ,” Satin pauses, like it takes a moment for the syllable to feel comfortable, “A year at the Wall doesn’t change the past.”

Jon drinks his wine. Is it that poor a vintage, or is his mood what’s souring it? Satin drinks, too, watching Jon with his dark eyes.  _ I like those eyes. _ Jon looks at his cup instead. 

“My sister Sansa--well, she’s really my cousin, actually--anyway, she told me a good ruler knows when to take something for themselves.”

Satin takes a sip of wine, “And what does Jon Snow want to take for himself?”

“Nothing I can grasp.”

“The king.”

Jon nearly drops his wine,  _ “How?” _

“I’ve learned to notice what people want before they admit it." Satin’s voice has this  _ tone _ , like he’s barring the door and blowing out the last candle. “You looked mortified beyond just getting caught. And I think too highly of you to assume it was because of me.”

_ Fuck _ . His face feels hot; Jon laments always being at a disadvantage. “A boyhood fascination,” he deflects, “It comes to nothing.”

The look Satin gives Jon lasts long enough that his heart speeds to a gallop. Satin comes to stand before him.

“But you desire him.”

“He’s a good king--a good man.”

“Ah,  _ admiration.”  _ The word sounds salacious. “I know what it’s like to admire a man. We can pretend.”

From his tone, Satin might as well be making a suggestion for breakfast, not to take Jon to bed and let him call out another’s name.

_ “No.” _

He shrugs, “I’ve done it before.” 

Anger rises at how nonplussed Satin seems. “You’re not my whore.” Jon always said that Satin’s past didn’t matter, but he’s never spoken it so bluntly before.

“There’s much worse fates than to be kept by a man like you.” He’s smiling, kindly, like Jon is a child not ready to be burdened with some hard truth. “I told you I admired you.”

“You shouldn’t admire a man you think would keep you like--like a mistress, or a  _ pet _ ,” Jon tries not to raise his voice. “Is that why you came here?”

“No,” Satin glances away. Jon’s never seen him look so uncertain. “I thought you’d be shouldering some huge burden alone, thinking you’re noble for it. I wondered if anyone was watching  _ you _ because last time I looked away, you  _ died _ .” 

_ Oh.  _ “That wasn’t your fault.”

“Maybe,” Satin replies, “but if I need to be kept to prevent that from happening again, I’d welcome it.”

Jon stands, and Satin follows him with his gaze. The next thing Jon says isn’t what he means, but it’s all he can manage. “I could use a friend.”

Satin kisses him, fully and thoroughly until the earth tilts, and Jon has to sit down once more.

“I’ll be anything you ask.”

It's either trust, or submission--Jon hopes it's the former. Regardless, the feeling is sharp, like a knife between the ribs, only death doesn’t follow, just confusion. “I don’t understand.”

“I don’t have a fancy lord’s education to tell you,” he laughs, “but I can show you.” 

Men spoke loyalty to his face, but when his back was turned-- _ words lie, but actions show the truth. _

Jon doesn’t have to explain himself when Satin kisses him. He just has to be led, to let Satin whisper sweet words until Jon bumps against his bed and sits. Satin doesn’t demand or ask questions; he only  _ gives _ until Jon can’t think of Jaime, of repairs on the Red Keep, of being a Targaryen. He can’t think of  _ anything _ other than what’s presented before him; the sensation of hands tugging at clothes, of the frankly  _ ridiculous _ way that Satin smells. 

“Fewer clothes to remove,” Satin muses as he works at the fastenings on Jon’s doublet. “It took a day at Castle Black to rid you of all the layers.”

“You never liked the cold.”

“I liked how deliciously warm  _ you _ were.”

Satin pulls Jon's shirt over his head and drops it on the bed. In the past, Jon’s inexperience made him passive. Ygritte had more; Satin has much,  _ much _ more. Perhaps it’s an edge of desperation created by absence, but Jon doesn't want to be idle. He takes Satin’s face between his hands and kisses him, unused to the smoothness of his skin. 

“You got rid of the beard.” 

“I didn’t  _ like _ it, but I didn’t want my face to freeze.”

Jon likes it better this way, too; Satin looks like when Jon first noticed him. The familiarity blends with the newness into something heady. _ How many times have we done this?  _

Another kiss. Jon tugs Satin’s shirt over his head, and pushes him onto the mattress with a hint of aggressiveness. Then, he reaches for Satin's pants with his right hand. His scarred fingers stumble; the stiffness most noticeable on tasks that require dexterity.  _ Maybe it’s nerves?  _ Regardless, Satin raises his hips and finishes what Jon started. 

Jon remembers that Satin reacts better to a slower pace. Satin's eyes flutter shut at the contact, and he lets out a tiny exhale. This was the one part Jon never felt unsure about--he could touch his own cock, so he could touch Satin. It didn’t even need to be  _ good _ because Satin flourished when the slightest bit of attention was paid. All he required was the slow stroking of Jon’s hand. 

By the time Jon stills, Satin is flushed with need and has a fistful of bedsheet in one hand.  _ Pretty.  _ Jon thought it when Satin first arrived at Castle Black.  _ How could someone so soft-looking end up here? _ Under that softness, though, was resilience. 

Satin writhing under his hands makes Jon's heart race and his cock  _ harder _ , if such a feat is even possible. He opens his eyes, and the earnest bewilderment in them is new to Jon. 

“Have you--" he takes a frustrated breath, "How many men have you been with in the past year?”

Jon's scowl dampens the mood a bit, “None. Why?”

“You're  _ better _ , so it got me curious.”

“It’s just been...me.”

Now, he smirks, “Thinking about the king?”

“...I’m  _ not _ answering that.”

_ “Yes, _ then.” Satin laughs, sits up, and divests Jon of his remaining clothes with an expediance that reminds him of being stripped for a bath as a child. He gives Jon a once-over when the deed is done. “You look  _ better _ \--not that you haven’t always been...” Satin trails off and bites his lip. He isn't reticent about compliments  _ or  _ observations. 

The words are the same as a touch--Jon flushes and doesn't understand how so much desire can be directed at one person. He can't hide his body's reactions, either, so he deflects with words. “We were all half-starved at Castle Black.”

Satin answers with a cheerful laugh. His disposition was a boon at the Wall, even freezing, frightened, and hungry, he joked to pass the time.

“In my bag,” Satin gestures with a tilt of his head.

Jon obeys, rifling through the contents until he finds the vial of oil, “You just  _ carry _ this around?”

“A trick of the trade.”

“Leave it here after.” It comes out more possessive than he intends. 

Satin kisses Jon again and pulls him back to the bed. When Jon’s on his back, resting against the pillows, he waits. He tries to relax, to be pliant, but his hammering heart makes it difficult. Jon passes the vial to Satin, who uncorks it. It smells like cloves--different than Jon remembers.

“It’s proper, this time,” Satin grins, “No other uses.”

“Not like the time we used the oil you put in your beard?” It worked well enough, only Jon felt like he smelled like Satin for  _ days _ , and everyone was going to notice.

“Better than spit. Or nothing.”

Jon winces, wishing that was a hypothetical scenario and knowing it probably isn’t. He wants to apologize to Satin for the entire world being so fucking horrid. The chance is lost, though--Satin uses the conversation as a distraction to slide an oil-slicked finger into him. Jon makes a rather indelicate noise; Satin is  _ still _ grinning. 

“It’s not funny.”

“You’re charming,” Satin leans in and kisses him, “so it’s a  _ bit _ funny.”

Jon learned the very first time he slept with Satin that he knew _ nothing _ about the world he was entering. Satin seemed to know  _ everything _ ; so Jon submits, did so even when Satin was under his command. He’s  _ careful _ , too, and even though they’ve never spoken of it, Jon knows why. Satin grips Jon’s bent knee, adjusts for a better angle, and adds a second finger. The second noise that leaves Jon is no less indelicate and doubly mortifying. 

This time, Satin outright laughs, “Do you remember the first time?”

_ “Yes.” _

“I thought Jon Snow deserved something gentle,” Satin is remarkable at maintaining a normal tone when Jon feels like he’s  _ dying.  _ “And I wondered if I’d known such a feeling well enough to give it.”

“You do.”

Jon felt some guilt at the beginning, for the broken oath, but the warmth in the act was too strong a force. He assumed that this gesture was all practicality, but Satin draws it out, gives Jon pleasure for the act itself, not just its endpoint. Now, Satin is the one making Jon grab the linens. The sensation builds, and Jon gets a bit lost in it until Satin taps him on the shoulder. He opens his eyes to find Satin watching him intently. 

"Jon," his voice is thick with some emotion Jon can't grasp in the throes of things, " _ Please."  _

He nods his answer.

Satin kneels between Jon’s spread thighs, bending them so Jon folds in on himself. He adds more oil to his own cock. He’s never,  _ ever _ caused Jon pain, and it seems to be a point of pride. 

When Satin’s cock fills him, Jon tenses on instinct. Satin lets out a strangled breath, but doesn’t move.

“Breath.”

There’s a still moment where Jon obeys; then, he asks, “Move.”

Satin obliges, slow strokes that are as maddening as they are pleasurable. “You always tense,” he leans down and kisses Jon, “but you take this  _ so _ well.”

It's  _ good-- _ good as it's always been between them. Satin remembers a dozen tiny details that they discovered during their time together--that Jon shudders if the right words are whispered, hot in his ear, and that it’s better  _ not _ to touch him until the end. Jon remembers things, too--that Satin loses track of the rhythm when Jon tightens his knees around him. Satin isn’t used to affection, so he likes to be kissed. 

There will be marks on  _ both _ of them come morning, places where Jon grips too hard, or where Satin sucks a bruise into his skin. 

When Satin comes, Jon drowns the sound of it with a kiss. Satin wilts, collapsing atop him in a sweaty heap. Jon's untouched cock is still caged between them, teetering on a precipice. 

After a few steadying breaths, Satin pushes off Jon, leaving him with a vacant ache. “Don’t worry; I won’t neglect you.”

All the air leaves his lungs in a rush when Satin slides down and takes him into his mouth. He grabs Satin’s hair in a desperate bid to anchor himself to  _ something _ . It takes no time for Jon’s climax to hit; pulled taut like a bowstring, he snaps. Satin’s name is ripped from his throat, and Jon doesn’t even have the courtesy to let go of him. It’s not until Jon has ridden through it that Satin pulls away, wiping his mouth and looking up at Jon. Once, Satin had told him, laughing, that nothing Jon did could hurt him. Jon thinks of the conversation now when he runs his hand over the curls of Satin's hair.

After a moment, he flops down beside Jon, "You  _ really _ make that worth doing."

Jon has the good sense to flush.

They’re not touching, but Jon can feel the heat radiating off Satin in the inches between them. Jon shuts his eyes, content that nothing bars him from doing so.

“The king,’ Satin says after a moment, “I can see why you’re after him.”

Jon’s eyes shoot open, the hazy afterglow gone. “You  _ can?”  _ He turns his head to look at Satin. “And I’m not  _ after  _ him.”

Satin faces him, one hand tucked under his cheek; his hair is mussed, and he looks incredulous. “What? He’s handsome. I mean, everyone knows that, but to see him--you can bring him; I’ll share.”

_ “Share?” _

“Ah, is he not..?”

“He loves someone--a knight.”

“A knight,” Satin repeats, “A man?”

“A woman. They have a  _ long _ history.”

“You’re not jealous?”

“There’s no reason to be,” he looks back to the ceiling, “They’re two halves, like something out of a song. What's my admiration, compared to that?”

“Admiration can be a beginning,” Satin answers, slowly.

_ A beginning of what? _

“Jon.” He turns again; Satin is still watching him. “I don’t want to go back to Oldtown.”

“Then don’t.” 

“And...I might’ve been lying about the king. Not the handsome part-- _ don’t  _ roll your eyes--but the sharing part. I mean, if it’s just once or twice--”

Satin’s nervous babbling makes him smile. “A third person seems...overwhelming.”

“Only for a novice,” Satin practically snorts. He sobers before continuing, “I...haven’t had a lot of choices.”

“I know.”

“So the ones I make need to count.” Another pause, "I know what life in a brothel looks like.”

“No one here will care if you’re a bastard, or what you did before.”  _ What power is there in being the Hand of the King if I can’t help one person? _

“You said the same at the Castle Black.”

“And I meant it, even if I failed.”

Satin takes Jon’s hand; his skin is softer than when he’d left the Wall, but it’s not as soft as when he’d arrived. “More important than success--you  _ try _ , and you mean it.”

“And I died for my failure.”

With his other hand, Satin traces one of the scars on Jon’s abdomen. Jon wasn’t sure, when he woke up, gasping and disoriented, with the Red Priestess staring down at him, if he wouldn’t have rather stayed in the darkness. 

_ What good is a man, a leader, killed by his own men? _

“You earned a second chance.”

There was also a prophecy or two, but Jon can't think of those, now.

_ That’s what all of this is, isn’t it?  _ A second chance for him, for Jaime, for everyone who lived past war, dragonfire, or wights. It was deliverance for those who died trying. 

As he told Jaime--it’s not to be squandered.

“I lied earlier, too,” Jon admits, sheepish, “I don’t  _ just _ need a friend.”

Satin moves closer, "I figured as much.”

* * *

Another morning, another Small Council meeting. The five of them sit in their usual seats, going over the business of the realm.

Ser Davos is talking about  _ something-- _ fishing boats? Sam updates everyone on the status of the new clinics around the city, and reports that illnesses related to drinking non-potable water are down to nearly none.

Those are all  _ good _ things--things that Jon, Jaime, and  _ all _ of them should be proud of. 

Today, though, Jon struggles to pay attention, and a quick glance at Jaime confirms the same, but worse; the king's eyes are shut. Ser Addam kicks Jaime this time, who startles awake like a war horn has been sounded.

_ "What the fuck?!" _

"It's not naptime, your grace," Ser Addam replies dryly. "That's  _ after _ the noon bell."

Jaime mutters something under his breath, but crosses his arms and sits up straighter.

"It's not just the king," Sam jumps in, "Our Hand looks a bit distracted, too."

Jon rubs a hand over his face and tries to look as alert as possible. He mirrors Jaime, sits up straighter. Despite Satin’s diligence, he's  _ sore _ , and  _ because _ of Satin’s enthusiasm, he hadn't slept  _ at all _ \--

"I slept poorly," Jon supplies as the vaguest excuse possible. "Forgive me; this is all wonderful progress."

Jaime snorts, "That's the vague answer I give when I didn't hear a damn word that was said."

"Then you'd be a hypocrite to scold me for it."

"To not listen, Jon, after these fine men worked so  _ hard _ ," Jaime clicks his tongue, "Did lovely...what's his name? Linen? Cotton?"

"Satin," Sam interjects, ever helpful. After a beat, he adds, "Flowers."

"Right!” Jaime continues, "Did lovely Satin Flowers keep you up? Swapping stories from Castle Black?"

Ser Davos and Ser Addam cough into their hands; it sound suspiciously like masked chuckles.

"That's not your business," Jon counters, "What has  _ you _ so distracted?"

The king gives a wistful smile, one that Jon wouldn't mind directed at him. "I was thinking," he pauses, sighing, "of how best to ask Ser Brienne to marry me."


	9. Brienne III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Jaime’s face is visible, he’s scowling at her. His hair needed brushed before, and it’s worse now. “The first time you listened to me, I bore my soul to you, and we were naked as our namedays. I thought the tactic might merit a second look.”
> 
> “I--” Brienne shakes her head, _“What?”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I THINK this is the chapter everyone has been waiting for.
> 
> I'm replying to last week's comments today! Thank you so much. 💖 I'm also working on side stories for this. Sansa and Margaery and some Satin POV stuff will be first.

It's been a long time since Brienne fought with Jaime. Probably not since the Riverlands, all those years ago, when she dragged him around by a chain. She'd wanted to gag him, and threatened to do so more than once. 

Then, she tried to drown him in a river.

Fighting Jaime made her blood sing. He was chained and weakened, but the sheer _power_ of him awed her. That fight, his _last_ fight, made her acutely aware of all that he'd lost. 

Since Jaime feverishly revealed his secrets to her, they'd found a common ground. They bickered, butted heads, and Jaime teased her, words digging under her skin, but they maintained an equilibrium. 

Today, though, today they _fought_.

Brienne stands in the practice yard for a long time, picks up Widow's Wail and holds both it and Oathkeeper in her hands. Oathkeeper was made for Jaime, but Widow's Wail is the better blade for him now--it's shorter, lighter, and easier to wield one-handed.

"My father meant that sword for me," Jaime told her one night, near the Vale, as they searched for Sansa. 

"Does he know you gave it to me?"

Jaime paused, seemingly lost in a thought, "Tyrion killed him before he discovered it. Although I can't imagine he would've thought kindly upon the idea."

"My quest defies your father's interests," she replied, "And yet, you sent me on it."

"Because I swore an oath," Jaime replied, "And I've long defied my father's wishes in one form or another. One might even say it's folly _not_ to do the opposite of what Tywin Lannister suggests."

Jaime's relationships with his family were tangled and complicated. Brienne hadn't known what to say. After a patch of silence, she asked, "Do you...miss him?"

"I don't know," Jaime admitted, "I was a disappointment, but he was always _there_ , imposing his will on us. I'm not sure death ends that."

"You choose your actions."

"I know, wench, I know," Jaime laughed, "And if I choose poorly, your stubborn self will come and drag me back to the straight and narrow."

Brienne furrowed her brow, and Jaime laughed even harder. "You can do that on your own; I've never dragged you--"

Then, she remembered that she _had_ done so. _Literally_. She blushed and shut her mouth. 

Jaime moved closer to her side of the fire, "You're pulling me even when we're apart."

Brienne didn't understand, so she replied, "What?"

"Your knightly idealism betters me."

"I'm...not as idealistic as I once was." She stared at the Oathkeeper's black and red blade in the firelight. The journey had changed her, made her understand that being a true knight was harder than she thought. Jaime looked at the blade, too, "It's a sword for a hero."

"I'm not a hero." 

Brienne would give the blade back to him, once they found Sansa. 

Then, as if Jaime read her mind, he replied, "It's yours; it will _always_ be yours."

Now, Brienne places Widow's Wail and Oathkeeper side-by-side on the bureau--they look _right_ together. Even as he stomped away from her, Jaime dropped the scabbard, too, like he knew the disagreement between them was a shadow that would pass.

_He knew I'd pick it up._

“You’re going to pace a hole in the floor, ser,” Pod tells her when he brings her breakfast.

“Pod, you don’t have to bring my meals,” she tells him, rather than address what was actually said to her.

“I was getting my own,” Pod puts the tray down on the table, “It’s no trouble.”

“Thank you.”

“If you _really_ want to thank me, you’ll talk to Ser Jaime.”

* * *

She opens her chamber door, and Jaime opens with the words, “Brienne, I love you.”

 _I love you, too,_ she thinks, _I loved you long before I knew_. Caring for him when they were captives of the Bloody Mummers was love, catching him in the baths of Harrenhal was love. She loved Jaime when he armed and armored her, and when he forgave her for leading him to Lady Stoneheart.

Self-sabotage seems to be her goal in life, so Brienne answers, “You _can’t_.”

Jaime looks affronted, like Brienne just denied him some immutable truth. His left hand clenches into a fist. His sleeve is rolled up today; Brienne’s sure he’s imagining the right one joining in.

“What do you mean I _can’t?”_

“I mean you _can’t_ ,” Brienne repeats, “You’re the king.”

“And that bars me from loving another?” His voice raises, and he kicks the door shut behind him. “I was told who I loved for three cursed decades. I love you, and won’t let you tell me otherwise.”

Brienne’s heart swelled the _first_ time, and there’s a crescendo at the second mention of the word _love._ She shuts her eyes, but can’t hide from the war within her; she’s longed for the words for so long, now that Jaime’s said them, Brienne can’t accept it.

“Jaime, _please.”_

“ _Wench_ ,” Jaime hisses the nickname, “What in the _seven hells_ do I have to do?” 

Jaime starts tugging frantically at the fastenings of his doublet with his left hand. He gets it half way undone and tries to pull it over his head, _utterly_ unsuccessfully. He’s trapped in it, face obscured. 

" _Fuck,”_ he says after another moment of impotent struggling.

Brienne dissolves into a peal of unladylike laughter. Jaime looks _ridiculous_ ; it cuts through the tension between them like Valyrian steel.

 _“What_ are you doing?”

Jaime emits a disgruntled huff, and replies with a muffled, “I want you to fucking _listen_ to me. You _never_ do, and it’s fitting because I’m always fucking wrong, but just _once-”_

“W-what does that have to do with disrobing?”

Jaime’s still entangled. Before he responds, she reaches for him, pulling the doublet over his head on instinct. How many times had she helped him with armor, or his clothes, even _before_ they were intimate?

When Jaime’s face is visible, he’s scowling at her. His hair needed brushed before, and it’s worse now. “The first time you listened to me, I bore my soul to you, and we were naked as our namedays. I thought the tactic might merit a second look.”

“I--” Brienne shakes her head, “ _What?”_

“Harrenhal,” Jaime continues, “Some hulking, dour wench looked at me with the most _judgmental_ gaze, and then I told her a secret not even my sister knew, all because I wanted her to think well of me.”

Undeterred, Jaime goes for the buttons on his shirt; he’s more adept at that, if slow. 

Brienne stills his hand, holds it in her own; he continues fussing for another breath until Brienne says, “Jaime.”

Their eyes meet. Time does nothing but better Jaime--a little grayer, mayhaps, but she’d be content to look upon him until the end of her days. It’s a blessing that they’re alive to stand here and be obstinate at one another. Suddenly, what she needs to say is _easy_ , like exhaling breath. She doesn’t know why it’s been stuck in her throat for so long.

“I love you, too,” she says, “I don’t remember a time when I didn’t.”

She expects a kiss. Instead, Jaime throws his arms around her neck and hides his face against her shoulder. One hand goes to the back of Jaime’s head, and the other rests between his shoulder blades. 

“Maybe when you drowned me,” Jaime laughs weakly, “I’m not sure you loved me then.”

“You’re right. I _definitely_ didn’t then; you incensed me.”

“You’re so honorable,” Jaime replies, “but that was a _dirty_ trick.”

Jaime’s watery-eyed when he looks up at her. His tears aren’t new to her, but she’s never seen them tied to happiness. Long ago, she wondered if Jaime would let her weep into his shoulder; she never expected the reverse. Brienne doesn’t carry a handkerchief, so she uses her sleeve, “There’s no need for that.”

“I disagree,” Jaime takes his left hand from where it rests at her nape and cups her scarred cheek. “In songs, people weep in joy over love all the time.”

“We’re not a song.”

“We have one, though,” Jaime smiles wide enough that his eyes crinkle. Brienne gets a bit lost in the green of them. “Surely you’ve heard?”

“Pod sang it for me.”

“Gods, he _would.”_

“It’s your fault he’s so precocious.”

Jaime gives her a brief kiss, “I know I created a monster.”

Brienne rolls her eyes, but that’s all the response she has time for before Jaime kisses her again, hungrier than the morning prior. She felt the anguish pouring from him then--an open floodgate of the things he couldn’t say. This is the opposite. from the hand in her hair, to the way he smiles against her lips when he breaks to take a breath, Jaime is _happy_.

They’re a chorus--two bodies moving as one. _Gods_ it’s been a long year without the frenzy Jaime brings, like his one hand has to compensate and do the work of two. He’s _everywhere_ ; in the kiss that scalds her, in the scrape of his beard on the soft places of her. Jaime knows every chink in her armor, every soft spot begging to be focused on. Places she _wants_ someone to touch, and to _see_ , but was always afraid of being hurt.

There’s a spot on her neck, below her ear and above the scars from the noose--that makes her knees buckle. Jaime hones in on it, laughing more when she wobbles. The desk is the closest furniture to them.

“Will it hold?” she asks as she sits and tilts her head to increase his access.

“This desk has probably been here since the days of Aegon the Conqueror,” Jaime slides his hand under her shirt, skimming over her waist, “Two people fucking on it won’t break it.”

"Ser, _who_ says we're…doing...that?" She meant to say _fucking_ ; the coarser language that pours from Jaime's mouth so easily eludes her. 

"A _year_ ," Jaime voice is hot against her skin, "a year of fucking my hand to memories. Walk out the door now if you want me to stop."

"Don't stop," she replies, hands in his hair, "I missed you; I _want_ you."

Jaime slides his hand up the inside of her thigh, presses the heel of his palm against her center. Brienne feels _hot,_ although she isn't sure if it's Jaime or her doing the burning. The desk makes them of an equal height. Jaime comes to stand between her spread thighs. The buttons of Jaime's shirt were half-undone by his hand; Brienne finishes the task, faster than Jaime ever could. 

"Dress me from now on," he smiles at her, hand creeping further under her shirt. 

"Who makes you presentable _now_?" She pushes the shirt until it's dangling from his left arm. Brienne touches him, like retracing steps to a place she visited long ago. Jaime lets out a wistful sigh.

"It's Jon, obviously." 

She snorts, " _That_ I'd like to witness."

"He's dutiful, truly."

Long ago, Brienne hid from Jaime under furs and blankets, worried that if he _saw_ her, it wouldn't be what he was looking for. Now, Brienne obliges when Jaime wants to disrobe her in kind. She hadn’t been ready to go out, so she’s only wearing a shirt. When she's as bare as he, Jaime kisses her again, lingering at her lips before moving south. 

"I missed your strength," he tells her near the meager swell of her breast. His beard tickles, and Brienne _loves_ it. "And your softness, of course."

She grips the edge of the desk, lets Jaime take his fill of her. He kneels, forehead resting against her thigh. His left hand on her knee trembles, so she takes it in her own. 

"Jaime." 

“I _missed_ you.”

“I know,” she replies, “and it’s over now.”

He nods against her and stands. Their hands meet at the lacings of his trousers. It's not a three-handed task, so they stumble over one another until Jaime gives up and lets Brienne finish. She takes her hands back when the task is done. Jaime removes his boots with a deftness that makes Brienne roll her eyes at his earlier fumbling.

 _I’d forgotten how adept he is when he isn’t preening for attention._ When he's naked, Brienne looks him up and down for long enough that Jaime starts to laugh.

"Do I really inspire such awe?" 

"You've always been beautiful." 

Jaime laughs even harder, "I defer to your judgment."

Brienne slides off the table to remove the last of her own clothes. Jaime doesn't help her, except to steady her with a hand on her shoulder. He kisses her while sliding his left hand between her parted thighs.

"I remember the first time," Jaime whispers into her ear, as he slides two fingers into her. "You were so _eager_ , and it was such a surprise."

Brienne lets out a breathy sigh, "W-what did you expect?"

“From someone with your honor? A rejection."

“Never.”

Brienne never knew Jaime’s skill with his right hand, but his left has always been leagues beyond her own fumbling attempts, long ago, trying to conjure Renly’s face as distraction. She’s _close_ when Jaime stops and feels vacant when he leaves her, only tingling nerves in his wake. It's the most frustrating feeling, to be kept on the precipice.

_“Jaime.”_

"Don't worry; you'll get what you seek." 

Jaime lines his cock up and pushes into her in one smooth stroke. It's like being knocked onto her back in a fight--it pushes the air from her lungs and she's left gasping, hands scrabbling against Jaime's shoulders. She wraps her legs around him, holds him to her in the most intimate way she knows. It doesn’t leave Jaime with much range of motion, but it’s _deep_ , and Brienne thinks that’s a fair trade. 

“I missed fucking you,” Jaime’s voice in her ear is half-whisper, half-gasp. “You’re _perfect_ like this.”

 _How_ Brienne can still blush eludes her, but it happens nevertheless. Jaime notices how it spreads down her neck and laughs into her skin. _“Don’t_ tease me,” she digs her heels into his back, and Jaime laughs _more_. 

“You like it,” Jaime quips in reply, “You’re _dripping_.”

“I don’t hate it,” stumbles over the last word when Jaime backs out of her hold enough to reach between them and rub his thumb above where they’re joined. 

“After _all_ this turmoil, wench, shouldn’t you be honest with me?”

Jaime steals the chance for her reply, though, drives into her with more force and evaporates any hope she has of speaking. It doesn’t matter--Jaime fills the silence by whispering things to get. Brienne loves the things he says to her in the heat of the moment--the filthy, the saccharine, _all_ of it. 

“I love when you talk to me,” Brienne manages after a moment, driven to a point where putting a thought together is nearly impossible.

Jaime slides his mouth against hers and climaxes, shaking around her. Brienne remembers that he collapses, after, and has the sense to wrap her arms around Jaime before he melts to the floor. 

“I’ll abandon all this. Just _ask_. We can go to Tarth, or to fucking Volantis for all I care--”

“Jaime--”

“It’s not worth it,” he’s clutching at her back, now, “I did all this because _you_ made me realize I could, but if it keeps me from you, I don’t want it.”

“My duty--”

“ _Fuck_ duty.”

“ _Jaime,”_ Brienne nearly shouts to override his frantic rambling, “You were right-- _you’re_ my duty. _”_

He looks up at her, surprised, “You’re staying?”

“I’m staying.”

“You’re staying.” Then, “I...don’t know if we have moon tea.”

At Winterfell, they’d been careful because the supply of moon tea was limited. Brienne _probably_ should be panicking, but she’s strangely calm. Jaime in the circle of her arms is anxious enough for both of them. 

“It’s alright,” she replies. _If that’s what’s meant to be._

 _That’s_ another conversation, one that Brienne tables for now. Jaime searches her expression, and seems satisfied with what he finds. When he slides out, Brienne misses him immediately.

“Let me,” he kneels before her, “I think I left the lady unsatisfied.”

“That won’t help--”

“It won’t hurt,” he says, “And it’s your pleasure.”

Brienne’s sensitive, _so_ sensitive, when Jaime presses his mouth against her. He laps at her, slowly and thoroughly, until she shuts her eyes and grips his shoulder too tightly. It’s wholly indecent, but Brienne hasn’t cared about anything like that in so, so long. There’s nothing, _nothing_ but the heat of his tongue, spiraling her higher. Jaime’s left hand keeps her thighs spread, while his right arm rests on her back.

“Surely you haven’t forgotten what to do,” Jaime teases, breath warm against her.

Contrary, Brienne replies, “I don’t do your bidding.” She’s going to, through, because Jaime doubles his assault, fingers and tongue, and there’s nothing she can do to stop her climax. 

When she comes down, shaking, Jaime stands and pulls her into a tight embrace.

“You have to abide by the wishes of the king; I think it's the law.”

Brienne scoffs, “Do your subjects know you bend the knee?”

“Is that a jest?” he gasps, “From _you?”_

* * *

Sansa is wary of King’s Landing; she never says it outright, but Brienne can tell from the set of her shoulders. The only place Sansa seemed to feel truly comfortable was in Winterfell; even amongst friends and family, there’s a tension that never quite leaves her when she’s away from home. She was carted around Westeros at the mercy of others, most of whom had selfish intentions toward her. 

She didn’t need Brienne’s sword any longer, not with Arya and her bannermen in the North. Brienne protected Sansa with her life, and would continue to do so anytime the Queen in the North, her _friend_ , asked. 

“Will you take me around the city?” Sansa asks, “I want to see what Jon has done, but I don’t want an entire retinue to accompany me.”

“Of course, Queen Sansa.”

Sansa wishes to ride, and Brienne agrees; less people will bother them on horseback.

The people of King’s Landing are, by and large, friendly--the atmosphere was far different than Brienne remembered the first time she arrived here with Jaime. Then. the people seemed malcontent and dishonorable. She’d been blamed for Renly’s death and stuck in a cell; it wasn’t until much later she learned Jaime did it to protect her from Ser Loras’s vengeance.

Brienne’s love for Renly was the hero worship of girlhood; Ser Loras had truly loved Renly. Brienne understands the difference between the two now.

It’s afternoon when they exit the Red Keep. Sansa doesn’t seem to expect details about improvements to the city, which Brienne is grateful for. She knew very little of what the city looked like before; Jon or Jaime would’ve been better candidates for a venture of that nature.

“I must confess,” Sansa tells her after an hour or so, “I _did_ want to see the city, but I also wanted to speak with you alone.”

“Queen Sansa?”

“Please, Brienne, just Sansa. You’ve saved my life times beyond counting; we’re past titles.”

 _It’s easy for a Queen to say that._ Nevertheless, she replies, “Sansa.”

“I’ll be frank,” Sansa purses her lips, “Ser Jaime needs a queen.”

Sansa startles Brienne into silence, so it’s a long moment before she replies, stubbornly, “You rule alone.”

“Much to the chagrin of my bannermen,” Sansa answers, “Who expect me to wed more and more with each passing moon.”

“What do you...?” Brienne trails off.

“At my most spiteful, I think to take Margaery to the godswood and swear an oath to her under the heart tree.” _Could she even do such a thing?_ Sansa is a queen, so no one can bar her from it, and Northern customs don’t require a septon. When Brienne doesn’t respond, Sansa continues, “I could even do it in secret. You don’t have to do things that way, though.”

“You think Jaime and I should w-wed?” Brienne stumbles over the last word; she’d never considered, truly, that it was a possibility. Carrying the fact that he loved her in return was enough. She would write her father, and stay here--she didn’t need to be a queen to do that.

“You both need heirs, and you’re in love,” Sansa smiles, “That is too fortuitous to overlook. Have you reconciled?”

“W-we have,” Brienne blushes, thinking of their encounter on the desk in her room. She didn’t seek moon tea after; she still could, if she desired.

Sansa gives her a genuine smile, “I’m glad.”

“That doesn’t mean he’ll ask me to marry him; I don’t know that he desires that.”

Sansa’s girlish eye roll says that she disagrees. Both of their idealism died long ago; love didn’t happen to maidens like in a song. No knight would come and sweep them away. They had to make their own ways in the world. Brienne had done so since she sailed to Storm’s End to serve Renly.

“Brienne,” Sansa says eventually, as though she peered into Brienne’s thoughts, “Do you wait for a man to act to seek what you desire?”

* * *

The conversation with Sansa is stuck in her mind, and she wants to see Jaime

_Could I really be the one to ask?_

He’d been mired in work for the entirety of the day after their encounter the morning prior and with the Small Council this morning. Podrick came into her room at breakfast, looked at her bed, and went, “I’m shocked you slept here, ser.”

Brienne nearly, _nearly_ boxed the boy’s ears.

Now, she stands outside Jon’s solar, poised to knock, when the door opens on its own. A curly head pokes out from the threshold and looks at her.

“Oh, hello.”

Taken aback, Brienne stumbles, “I’m, um, here to see Lord Snow. I’m Brienne of Tarth. We’re to meet at the second bell.”

“You’re the knight, aren’t you?”

“Yes?”

He opens the door and steps aside, “Jo--Lord Snow didn’t return for lunch, so I’m uncertain--”

“I can wait, if you don’t mind the company.” 

“I don’t mind,” the man replies, “Would you like wine, or…?”

“Wine is fine, thank you.” She envies Jaime, for whom smalltalk flows easily. He builds rapport so quickly, while she sits there like a boulder. The glass appears on the table before her; Brienne sips the wine in silence. “This isn’t my solar,” Brienne starts, “but Lord Snow surely wouldn’t mind if you sit.”

“You’re right,” he smiles slightly, “Jon wouldn’t mind, but, my lady--”

“Please,” Brienne says, “you’re--?”

“Satin,” he pauses, “Flowers. I was of the Night’s Watch.”

_What a name for a brother of the Night’s Watch._

“Like Maester Tarly.”

“Not such an equal,” Satin replies, “I was a steward.”

Satin was sitting in Jon’s solar, greeted someone who came to his door, and offered her drink--those were duties of a steward.

"Are you...reprising the role?”

Satin freezes, and Brienne wonders what her misstep was. “Before I knew what I was doing, I sat out his clothes and fetched his breakfast.”

“I’m sure Lord Snow was grateful for the assistance.” She’d seen Jon express gratitude to everyone from the Master-at-Arms to a serving girl who gave him ale at Winterfell. Jon’s courtesies saw beyond station.

“He always thanked me, even when it was my duty,” Satin rests his chin in his hand, “He told me about you, ser.”

“What did he say?”

“That you have the king’s love, and that he made you a knight.”

Hearing Jaime's feelings so openly from another _always_ makes Brienne blush. To have it named _love_ , certainly before Jaime spoke the words to her, increases the feeling. “We’ve known one another a long time, and we weren’t always so amicable.”

Satin leans in a bit, and Brienne feels the intensity of his dark-eyed gaze, “Will you tell me, ser? I _never_ tire of a good story.”

"It's...not that interesting."

"We've little else to pass the time."

Brienne decides the more ridiculous elements are already in the damned song, so what's the harm? She tells Satin about how insufferable she found Jaime in the beginning, and how she learned the honor buried within him. She tells him about the bear, and Jaime saving her. 

Satin is a fine listener, like she'd been at father's knee as a girl, even though Brienne is no storyteller. He laughs at the right places and sighs when Brienne gets to Oathkeeper. 

"A maiden gifted a sword fit for a hero," Satin says, "It's a token of love."

_Had it been?_

"That didn't occur to me. I had no idea why he placed such faith in me."

"Because you placed your faith in him." 

She _had_ run all over the Riverlands telling anyone who would listen that Jaime was a true knight. _I was such a silly girl._ "I've learned many lessons since then," she admits. "I was young and filled with stories."

"I like stories," Satin takes a drink of wine, "they take you places. When I was a child, after my mother died, I used to wish a knight would come and take me away."

"Most boys wish to _be_ the knight."

Satin shakes his head, "I became passable with a crossbow at Castle Black, but I'm no warrior. And boys born in brothels don't dream that big."

 _He's a whore._ Brienne feels foolish for not noticing--the name, the flattery that practically drips from him, the _looks._ Then, she tries to wrap her mind around finding a male whore in the solar of the Hand of the King. She's silent for too long piecing it together.

"Don't think poorly of Jon," Satin's smile suddenly feels _very_ painted on, "Everyone told him to pick a different steward because I was an improper choice. He insisted, and then rumors started that I earned the position by being, well-- _a whore._ ”

"Oh, that's not--"

"I didn't get the position by letting the Lord Commander fuck me."

"The sword Jaime gave me," Brienne answers softly, "they said I earned by letting Jaime bed me. That there was no other way someone like me could have such a thing. When we were apart, and again in Winterfell, men called me the Kingslayer's Whore."

"People are _horrible."_

"They lash out at things they don't understand. And when they want to feel better about themselves, they step on someone."

"Did it upset you?"

"At first," Brienne answers, "but I found it a worthy price for his faith. If people whispered Kingslayer behind his back, then I would defend him. And if people thought me his whore for it, then so be it."

"Jon always defended me," Satin takes a decorative pillow from the couch and hugs it to his chest. “He’s fair, and patient."

"Lord Snow sees the potential in everyone. The men at Winterfell followed him easily.”

“He didn’t judge me for my past, and I think that’s rare.”

“Is that why you came to King’s Landing?”

Satin nods, "When we left Castle Black, I regretted not staying with him. So, I thought I’d come here and see. I’ve little to offer other than myself, but I could at least do that. Jon would scowl at me for thinking so.”

The door to the solar creaks a bit on its ancient hinges and Jon appears, “You’re correct, I'm scowling right now."

Satin startles, quite dramatically, "Don't eavesdrop!"

The scowl deepens, "Entering _my_ solar isn't eavesdropping." Jon looks at Brienne, "I got waylaid on my return to the Keep. I'm sorry."

"No need," she answers, "we were having a fine talk."

The composure Satin seemed to have lost when Jon entered regained, Satin rises from the chair and goes to Jon. "I was just getting to know your competition."

_Competition?_

Brienne doesn't have time to parse that for meaning before Jon sputters, and Satin starts laughing.

"I should endorse Ser Brienne's relationship with the King because it suits my aims, too."

_"Satin--"_

"I've only known her a half hour, but I like her. I think you're right though, you've--"

To Brienne's _great_ surprise, Jon leans in and kisses Satin, halting him mid-word. It's not a lengthy kiss, but it's _sound_ and obviously familiar. It takes Satin a breath too long to close his eyes. Brienne feels her face heating up, and she looks away. _They're lovers._ She feels like an idiot for not noticing the signs. The regard in Satin's tone, the softness in the way Jon interrupted him. When Brienne looks back, they've separated except for Jon’s hand resting on Satin’s shoulder.

Jon looks as embarrassed as she feels. Satin is grinning rather broadly when he sits back on the couch. Brienne kissed Jaime before in similar situations--when he's sought to embarrass her, and Brienne had to cut him off. Never in front of anyone else, though.

 _"_ Satin, _please_ stop,"

He huffs and crosses his arms, “You're no fun."

Jon sighs, “So, I’ve been told.”


	10. Jaime IV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I spoke to Sansa the other day,” Brienne tells him two mornings later. “She...made a point to me, about duty.” She’s running a brush through her hair and glances over her shoulder. It’s a uniquely feminine gesture, and to witness it feels intimate and familiar. He’s done little to earn being so close to her.
> 
> “Queen Sansa makes many sound observations.”
> 
> Brienne takes a deep, steadying breath before continuing, “She says y-you need a queen.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I started posting side content for this fic. All the Jon and Satin centered content is grouped in one fic: [A Good Man](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22732120/chapters/54320677). It's intended to be five parts. The first two parts take place at Castle Black.
> 
> Next is a Margaery and Sansa oneshot!
> 
> I hope everyone enjoys this week's chapter.

It's been a sennight and Jaime is in a _good_ fucking mood.

He's no closer to divining how to ask Brienne to wed him. The situation imbues him with an excess of nervous energy, but he tries to tell himself there's no rush. _She's staying._ Her words are the truth. There's no caveat, no terms or tricks. Brienne is unfailingly honest and would never set a trap for him to catch his foot in. 

The nervous energy, too, can be put to good use. When Jaime can't decide whether Brienne would want him to prepare something romantic, or to just ask her so they could make the decision together, he finds Brienne and kisses her. _That_ is easy--they're so in sync that it leaves him with no room to wonder. When the gravity of making Brienne _his_ queen overwhelms him, she takes the decision out of his hands.

Jaime is content for the moment to just _exist_ with Brienne with no threat of death of separation. The rest can wait a few days, until he gets over the shock of envisioning himself as a husband. He accepted, long ago when Cersei refused his childish proposal, that a husband was something he would never be.

Then again, he never imagined himself a king, either.

"Your work isn't even suffering," Addam tells him one morning after a particularly efficient Small Council meeting. "I thought your lady love would distract you."

"I want the work done as fast as possible," Jaime shrugs, "And Brienne has always been a motivating force." 

"You always _were_ a dawdler regarding anything other than swordplay," Addam chuckles at some memory of their childhood at Casterly Rock. "You'll get to what you want faster if you do your duty first."

"This isn't like that," Jaime counters, "there was _only_ duty. And Father made me read, so I'd just waste away in the chair."

"...While I was out in the yard with a sword already."

Addam is a good friend and a good man, but sometimes Jaime thinks the tenure of their friendship gives him too much ammunition.

"I want to believe I can have a measure of happiness _and_ be a good ruler."

He wants Brienne to see that he can accomplish what she believes he can. He also wants her to see that she won't be neglected. There _has_ to be a way to find a balance--his duty to her, and his duty to the realm. Brienne would never ask for his time, would never seek to change his routine, even if it wounded her. Her duty and her honor are the shield of her heart.

Staying isn't the same as being willing to be a queen, though. _That_ thought keeps him up at night--maybe she doesn't mean she'd marry him? The heir the Evenstar can't remain in King's Landing as the king's lover. Winterfell was one thing; it was a war and everyone's focus was turned away from social propriety. To have her stay here, and _not_ wed her would dishonor her _._

It was the greatest indignation, to have Brienne sullied by his name before he even touched her. _They'll call her my whore again._ And she would weather it, but she shouldn't have to. But to solve it means being a queen. She'll make the _best_ queen--there's no one of nobler spirit. If Jaime was able to ingratiate himself to the people of King's Landing by kissing babes, all Brienne will have to do is give them one of her rare smiles. 

Addam gives Jaime a too-knowing look, so Jaime turns his sights to Jon at the other end of the table. He's reading something, which isn't unusual, but he's seemed _particularly_ sullen for the last few days. 

"Lord Commander Marbrand," Jaime only uses the title as a jest of propriety. "Does our esteemed Hand look broody?"

Addam shrugs, "The lad looks as he usually does."

"I know he's always sullen, but look at that furrowed brow," Jaime gestures with his stump, "He's deeper in it than usual."

"...If you say so, your majesty."

"And I _do_ ," Jaime replies, "Once you spend enough time with Jon Snow, you start to identify the different natures of his scowls. It's like learning to read the ocean."

"I'm certain it's not like that at all." 

Undeterred, Jaime continues, "For example, Jon's scowl right now says 'I can hear every word you’re saying."

Jon slaps what he's reading down on the table, "I _can_ hear every word." Ghost, at Jon's feet, perks his ears up at the sound. Jon reaches down to scratch him between the ears. "Must you bother me?"

"See, my perfect winning streak continues."

"I _think_ you know the answer to that," Addam laughs and stands from his chair, "Well, duty beckons."

Despite the nettling, Jaime _does_ feel concern for Jon. When Addam leaves, he moves to the chair nearest Jon and sits in it backwards, arms resting on the back. He's pretending to read again, but Jaime is certain it's a ruse. 

Jon looks at him, "Can I assist you?"

"Truly, Jon, what's bothering you?"

"Nothing."

"You look like someone pissed in your stew. Have I been neglecting you for Brienne?" Jaime tips the chair back on two legs. "Don't be jealous; you're _just_ as fun to tease as she is."

"I'm not _jealous,"_ Jon grumbles, "Not everything revolves around you."

"I'm nearly twice your age, mayhaps I can impart some wisdom."

Jon looks skeptical, which is supremely offensive, but Jaime lets it slide. He seems lost in thought for a long moment before he says, "I don't know what to do with Satin."

"No? I _bet_ Satin knows what to do with you."

His Hand _actually_ buries his face in his hands. Jaime misses being able to do that; it's much less theatrical with one. "Satin wants to stay here."

"Good. You seem fond of the lad."

"I _am_ ," Jon admits, and it sounds a bit pained. “But I’m Hand of the King, and before that I was Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch. I can’t just--”

"There's no pesky oaths here."

"He's a _man_ , Jaime."

Jaime smirks, "And you _like_ that, from the little interlude I spied on. My curiosity got the better of me when you first told me; I wondered what drew your eye. He’s _pretty_. Remind me to get you drunk and ask mortifying questions about how _that_ works. Does he? Or do _you?"_

"I'm not divulging that."

 _With enough wine, you will._ Jaime lets the teasing drop for now. "You care about him. That's a good thing."

“You _know_ what people will say. They called him my whore, my _pet_ , when there were only whispers. Satin doesn’t deserve that.”

 _"_ The people owe their prosperity to _your_ toiling,” Jaime puts the chair legs on the floor and his hand on Jon's shoulder. 

“And to yours, but that won’t stop them from gossip and judgment.”

Jon’s faith in him, as always, confuses and pleases him. Jaime supposes he hasn’t fucked things up too badly; maybe he can even give sound advice. “The realm isn’t in your bed, and the people of King’s Landing don’t dictate your happiness.”

“Brienne is an appropriate choice; she’s highborn.”

“Ask your sister how she manages, then,” Jaime answers. “And have you asked Satin his motivations?"

"No, but he keeps acting as my steward, and I don’t know how to ask him to cease," Jaime clearly uncorked something in Jon. "He doesn't need to earn his presence."

 _We’re alike in some ways._ Jon should do as he bid Jaime-- _ask._ The similarity also means he won’t see the value in his own advice. Jaime had seen Satin more than once in the past week, and the boy’s feelings were plain on his face.

“Brienne,” Jaime starts, thinking an example will make his point, “She laced my boots yesterday. I didn’t _need_ her to, and I didn’t ask, but she did it regardless.”

Jon’s expression reaches a peak of disgruntledness, “Ser Brienne loves you.”

“I know she does.” _Gods, it’s the fucking best thing._ Jaime’s grinning like a fool. 

“Lady Catelyn used to set out Father’s clothes. You do such kindnesses, when you love--” Jon pauses, mouth ajar, “ _Oh.”_

Jaime gives Jon a comforting pat on the shoulder, “There you go.”

* * *

That evening, Jaime sits alone in his chamber and tries to pen a letter to Tyrion. 

“I’ll leave you alone with your thoughts,” Brienne told him.

“You have my thanks,” Jaime replied, “I want to say something, but I don’t yet know what. It will be a dull evening.”

He’s not in a position to write and rewrite draft after draft, so he spends the better part of an hour staring at the blank parchment that seems to be mocking him. Writing something once that’s legible will take him half the night. It’s good that he’s alone because there will certainly be some cursing and throwing of the quill or inkpot.

He doesn’t know what to say to his brother, only that the events of the last few weeks made him feel the need to say _something._ If Tyrion died tomorrow, Jaime would lament the unsaid things created by the rift between them. 

Is Tyrion happy? He always wanted Casterly Rock when they were children, but getting what you want sometimes doesn’t lead to happiness. He hadn’t wed--or, if he had, Jaime hadn’t been told. People stopped asking his opinion on royal marriages soon after his coronation when they realized he couldn't give less of a shit.

Finally, after what feels like an age, he scratches something down.

_Tyrion,_

_I hope this letter finds you well, and I hope you can actually read my awful handwriting._

Jaime nods to himself as he watches the words dry. A jest seemed like a good beginning.

_Brienne is here visiting from Tarth. You’d laugh at how ridiculous I’ve been. I had to summon her here by royal authority. I couldn’t find the courage to just tell her I wished to see her. I could’ve used your wisdom because I’m such a disaster at courting and wooing. I’m going to ask for her hand in marriage. I actually think Father might’ve liked her, not that he would admit it._

He pauses. Perhaps he shouldn’t mention their father.

_I know a lot has passed between us. If you’re willing and able to make the journey, I’d like to talk in person. We’re the only ones left, and I think we’ve a duty to try and mend the rift between us._

_At the least, you can come and laugh and how terrible a ruler I make._

If Tyrion responds, Jaime can say more. For now, he’s pleased. Even the handwriting is passable, if not elegant. He’s still going to leave the royal penmanship to Jon, but this was a task he couldn't ask for help with. Jon would’ve given him that grumpy look he so often wore, but would’ve helped. Brienne would’ve, too.

Jaime had forgotten, after a year apart, how attentive to details Brienne is. Perhaps it was for his own good because if he remembered with too much detail how it felt to be cared for by her, the distance would’ve been unbearable. Brienne was the first gentle thing he felt after a year chained in Riverrun’s dungeon, and he’d been craving it ever since. He had to lose his swordhand to feel that gentleness for the first time.

 _Live_ , Brienne told him, _live for revenge._

He could find her gentleness in that nudge, meant to stir his pride when he was at his lowest. How Brienne had known, even then, what would keep him eating and breathing? She cared for him at her own peril. Cleaned up his shit, and his piss, listened to him weep from pain and curse the gods.

Somehow, after all that, Brienne _still_ deigned to fuck him. And, more than that, she _loved_ him.

Jaime’s in a good humor when he rolls the letter and seals it with a wax stamp. He stands, thinking to take it to the rookery to be sent off in the morning, when there’s a noise outside the door.

“I can’t just let you in.”

 _Ser Loras again tonight._ Maybe it’s spiteful, but Loras _still_ reminds him so much of himself when he was young that Jaime enjoys assigning him mundane tasks. At least he was made to swear no oath of celibacy or lifetime servitude, not that Loras seems to avail himself of the freedom.

The response is muffled through the thick wood of the door. It’s not Brienne--Loras wouldn’t _dare_ argue with her. Curious, Jaime opens the door to find Satin Flowers with Ghost at his heels. Jaime almost, _almost_ says something glib, like that Satin isn’t his type, but he holds his tongue. 

Jon will come into his room and commit regicide for making a joke such as that.

 _Then he can be the Kingslayer._ The jest is so amusing he nearly begins laughing at himself. Instead, he answers Loras’s look of ever-growing irritation. “It’s fine, Ser Loras, let the lad speak.” Jaime leans against the doorframe.

Loras looks at Satin and then back to Jaime, “But, your grace, he’s--”

“A guest of the Hand of the King.”

Satin looks genuinely nervous; Jaime understands why--he’s neck-deep in highborn in the capital of backstabbing and treachery. Only a fool _wouldn’t_ be wary in King’s Landing, no matter what improvements Jaime and Jon have made. 

“If you’re certain,” Loras relents.

“A king must always be certain,” Jaime replies, knowing the glibness in his tone will irritate Loras even more. “I’ll scream if I need you.”

Ghost follows Satin into the room, and Jaime notices he keeps a hand on the direwolf’s nape. The creature makes Jaime uneasy--maybe it’s some leftover tension between Lannisters and Starks that generates it. That, and Ghost could rip out his throat with one bite.

Satin clearly feels the opposite, and it’s telling; Jon _would_ want someone who got along with his abnormally large dog.

“What brings you here?”

“I, ah,” Satin begins, “Jon--Lord Snow--”

“Please,” Jaime laughs, “drop the pomp. I tire of an hour of banal niceties and titles before every conversation.”

“Jon received a letter,” Satin pulls an envelope out of his pocket; Jaime sees the seal of House Lanister stamped on the wax seal. “It was in with his correspondence, but he believes it’s for you.”

Jaime holds out his hand for the letter, and Satin passes it to him. “There’s not many people using the Lannister seal these days. Mayhaps my brother or my Aunt Genna. She married a Frey, but she’ll still use it if she wishes to assert herself.”

“Does she,” Satin asks, “wish to do that often, your grace?”

“Eternally,” Jaime puts the letter on the table and pries the wax seal apart with his left hand, “Did you read it first? Anything I should know?”

“I--I’d _never_ \--”

Aunt Genna’s handwriting is recognizable immediately. The letter is addressed to “Jaime Lannister, First of His Name” and every other damn part of the fucking title. It takes up _two_ lines. Jaime groans. “Satin, can you read?”

“I--yes. Some.”

He foists the letter back at Satin. “ _Please_ , read this to me. I can’t handle whatever she’s going to say.”

He stares at the letter for a long enough that Jaime wonders if he was lying about reading. It _does_ give him a moment to review Satin. The boy _is_ comely--but he doesn’t look like a girl. Jaime only made that mistake from behind. His hands holding the letter are graceful. It’s quite a challenge to imagine him at the edge of the world at Castle Black. 

For all Satin’s appearance, Jon is probably most attracted to some aspect of his noble spirit. Something he saw, buried, that others overlooked at first judgment. Jon was a lot like Brienne in that respect. Jaime tells himself his observations are fodder for teasing his Hand, but Jaime also feels a stubborn sense of protectiveness for Jon’s wellbeing. 

Whether Jon wants to acknowledge it or not, he _is_ the last of Rhaegar’s children. 

Or, maybe it’s Jaime’s destiny to play shepard over Ned Stark’s flock--to make up for Bran, to make up for being idle while Lannisters wreaked havoc. He doesn’t mind the task; he couldn’t protect his own children, and it amuses him to imagine Ned’s reaction to being up to his neck in Starks.

“Is the content that horrid?”

Satin looks up and shakes his head, “S-she wants you to marry. She says it’s “your duty to House Lannister and to the realm to pick a woman who can suffer you long enough to bear you children.’ She offered,” he pauses on the word, “... _instruction_ , if you’ve need.”

“...What else?”

“That your lord father would think you’re a...terrible king.”

Jaime laughs until he has to lean against the table to catch his breath. “From her, that last bit is a compliment. She never gives them outright, so half the time they’re thinly-veiled insults.” His father was more likely to do the opposite. 

Satin nods stiffly. Something about his awkwardness reminds Jaime of Pia--she crawled into his bed, naked, at Harrenhal, flattered him and offered herself to him. Then, she was remarkably shy in other situations.

The kindest gesture would be to let the boy go, but Jaime’s never been one to leave well enough alone. “Is this your first time in King’s Landing?”

“Yes, you grace.”

“How do you find the city?”

He looks taken aback at being asked after; highborn rarely ask about the smallfolk. “Much better than in Oldtown, and better than Castle Black, too.”

“Because it’s not so _fucking_ cold here. All the Northerners have ice for blood.”

“They do,” he agrees, “Jon is almost _never_ cold.”

“It’s more insufferable to watch them all be so chipper about it.” Jaime holds out his hand and Satin passes the letter back to him, “You have my gratitude for suffering Aunt Genna’s _help_ with me.”

“You’re welcome,” Satin bows before turning to leave.

The lad is an oddity. Jaime has _questions_ and the authority and poor impulse control to ask them. “How did you end up at Castle Black? I assume you’re not like Jon and myself, swearing oaths for life by choice.” He freezes, and Jaime realizes that Satin _knows_ he has absolute authority over the situation--a word from the king and Satin could be thrown in the Black Cells. “It’s an innocent query,” he adds.

“I stabbed a patron.”

“I take it that’s _not_ a euphemism?”

“There was a girl,” Satin pauses, “young-- _too_ young, and he wouldn’t accept that, so I stabbed him with a table knife.”

“Did you kill him?”

“No. He was wealthy, so it took one word to have me jailed.”

“Well, it sounds like he deserved it.” 

Satin smiles just the littlest bit.

Another question enters Jaime’s mind, “You and Jon, who initiated it?”

“I did,” Satin answers, seeming more relaxed, “When I realized he never would because of our difference in station.”

“You were under his command,” Jaime chuckles, “He’s so principled; he’d _never.”_

“It’s what’s so good about him.”

“You don’t find it makes him a stick-in-the-mud?”

“Not at all,” Satin replies, “He’s good company.”

 _Is there some fun, jovial Jon Snow I’ve never met?_ Jaime knows that look on Satin’s face--he looks at Brienne like that, and doesn’t need a mirror to recognize the expression. “Jon won’t tell me this without wine making him loose-lipped, but I’m _dying_ to know, when the two of you--who--?” For once, Jaime _isn’t_ explicit, and the vagueness feels odd coming from him. Brienne would ask the question like that, letting the silence fill in the missing words. Not that Brienne would _ever_ ask such a question, explicit or otherwise. Jaime is also fairly certain Satin won’t answer him.

“Me,” Satin answers with no preamble, “Although, I let Jon try recently.”

 _So_ that’s _how it is._ He’s going to have _such_ fun with that information next time he wants to nettle Jon. “And how did Jon fare?”

“Well,” Satin pauses, and Jaime is fairly convinced the expression on his face is one of smugness, “He had a good teacher.”

Jaime can’t resist--he starts laughing outright. 

* * *

In the end, Jaime doesn’t need to think about _his_ approach at all. 

“I spoke to Sansa the other day,” Brienne tells him two mornings later. “She...made a point to me, about duty.” She’s running a brush through her hair and glances over her shoulder. It’s a uniquely feminine gesture, and to witness it feels intimate and familiar. He’s done little to earn being so close to her.

“Queen Sansa makes many sound observations.”

Brienne takes a deep, steadying breath before continuing, “She says y-you need a queen.”

Jaime barks a laugh, “My Aunt Genna Frey said something similar in a letter I received the other day. That I’m remiss in my duty by not filling the Red Keep with little lions.”

The hairbrush is still clutched in her hand, but she’s turned to face him. Brienne is staring him down, blue eyes like she’s ready for combat--the only way she knows how to reveal her heart.

“There is...a duty to that,” she says, words slow.

“Haven’t we had enough of duty?”

“I told Lord Snow my first night here that I thought the two could be entwined,” Brienne turns back to the mirror, studying her reflection with a scowl. She’s probably thinking something critical. “I’m no queen. I’m a knight.”

“You’d be a wonderful queen.”

She smiles slightly, “You didn’t think you were a king, and you _are_. A good one, the _right_ choice.”

“You flatter me.”

“I speak the truth.” Now, she rises and moves to sit beside Jaime on the bed, “Sansa advised me to ask, if it’s what I wanted. Jaime, would you marry me?”

“We don’t have to--” Jaime skips over the middle of the the idea like speaking it aloud will ruin the illusion, “Having you here is enough; there’s no need to tie yourself to this unwillingly.”

“I never thought I’d be in this position,” she pauses, “but I--I want to.”

 _Brave_ , he’d thought so many times, _and so, so stubborn._ Jaime’s pride in her nearly distracts him from answering, “I planned to ask _you_ , but I couldn’t find the best way.”

Brienne eyes go wide, “If you intended to ask me, then--”

“You entertained the idea that I’d refuse you?”

“I--I didn’t want to assume.”

“I’d be _honored,_ ” Jaime can’t keep the grin off his face, “I’d be the happiest maiden in _all_ of Westeros.”

“ _Jaime--”_

To exasperate Brienne of Tarth for the rest of his days, and to have days left to do so in. _What greater gift could I ask for?_ “What? Who doesn’t want to wed a valiant knight?”

Brienne’s blush creeps over her freckled cheeks and down her neck, “I don’t look the part of a queen; I’m not Margaery or Sansa.”

“You look like a queen because you’ll be one.” 

She looks supremely skeptical, but that’s alright; he knows methods for convincing her to see what he sees.

“If you didn’t accept, I was trying to figure out how I would tell my father I was staying here without being wed.”

“I’d never dishonor you like that.”

“It wouldn’t be a dishonor,” Brienne replies, “being near you never could be.”

“I never thought I’d be a husband.” He was a warrior, a sword, and nothing more. He’d never have a wife or be a father. “I consigned myself to live without all these things.” 

Brienne leans in and kisses him, not lingering _nearly_ enough. “I never thought to have them either. Or that if I did have them, they’d be through duty, and not love.”

There’s _so much_ love here; the depth and breadth of it awes Jaime. “You won’t love being queen,” he whispers, as though the lower volume will make it less true.

“I’ll dislike a great deal of it.”

“Much of it is tedious,” Jame pauses, “but I think we should _celebrate_.”

Confusion crosses Brienne’s expression, but it really shouldn’t. They’ve only been reunited a week, and Jaime hasn’t had his fill of her yet. There’s no craving, not that Jaime’s felt, quite like Brienne’s touch. The year apart only made the feeling more potent, and now he has unfettered access to her.

Jaime has _never_ been good at denying himself things.

“ _Celebrate,”_ he repeats, and then tackles her to the bed.

Brienne catches on quickly enough, kisses him with an enthusiasm that Jaime expects. Jaime loves that she’s not fragile--they can tussle and, really, the only party in danger is himself; she could best him with her strength and her _two_ hands. Her hold on him is steady, hands against his back, the same as his confidence in her. The combination is heady and he wants her all the more for it. Jaime lets his hand roam, slides it under her clothes where it’s easiest to reach and tickles her.

She huffs, and Jaime just _grins_ , thinking of all the mornings and afternoons and evenings that will be his to irritate and dote on her. Sometimes, Jaime can’t even tell the two apart.

Brienne’s back doesn’t stay on the mattress for too long; she does what Jaime wants and reverses their position.

“Is that what you were seeking?”

“I’m a man of simple wants.”

A fond eyeroll is her answer. Then, a kiss.

Some men seek novelty, but Jaime finds what he desires most is the comfortable familiarity of Brienne--to be _known_ , and to know her in return. She touches him with care, remembering what makes him sigh and shudder, even after a year apart. He’d gifted her the little wisdom he possessed in lovemaking, and Brienne took it and improved the experience.

They’re of one mind when they start tugging at clothes. Sometimes, Jaime wants to tarry at this part, but not today. Brienne looks calmly down at him, even as he divests her of various articles of clothing and flings them away. The position limits them--her trousers get stuck around her knees, and she moves to lie beside him to remove them.

When they’re both naked, Brienne straddles him and peers down at him. _What a journey,_ he thinks, _I remember at time when such a gesture would have made her run and hide._ She’s flushed, though, a remnant of the maiden she was when they met.

“It _might_ be inappropriate to see my bride this way,” Jaime teases as he reaches out to her. With only one hand to hold himself aloft, there’s little better vantage point than on his back.

“I think we abandoned decorum long ago.” Her tone is vaguely scolding, but she looks amused.

“It wouldn’t make for a good wedding night if we didn’t know our way around one another.”

“I...think the opposite is expected.”

“Foolish.”

He’s giddy over the prospect of binding himself to her, and the only way he knows to show her is with action. Brienne sighs when he ghosts his fingertips over her hip, trailing them inward to the apex of her thighs.

“Brienne, lay back down,” she opens her eyes and listens, letting Jaime settle over her, “Let me. Although, we could tell people the queen rides her king.”

 _That_ earns him an indignant sputter, but Jaime presses his cock into Brienne, grinning when a sharp exhale leaves her. _Somehow_ , Jaime earned the privilege of her honesty; Brienne doesn’t filter her reactions. She gasp as his pace increases, wraps her legs around him when he collapses on her. Her own climax reverberates through them both. When he groans into her ear, she runs her fingers through the tangles in his hair.

Jaime means to spill outside her, just as he had intended the first day, but the peak comes upon him swiftly and he barely has time to react. In an aborted gesture, he retreats from her too late and mostly fails at his goal. He panicked last time, too.

Because she always _knows,_ she moves her hand through his hair again, and says, “It’s alright.”

That makes him pull back and look at her, “But you--?”

“A-an heir,” she says the word like it’s obvious, “If we’re wed, it’s fine.”

 _Oh._ Then, he’s kissing her again because even though a child is unlikely from one encounter, Brienne is _willing_.

“Do you want...a feast?” he says a moment later. “I’ve tried to avoid excess since we’re rebuilding, but having something to celebrate is a good thing. I’m certain Jon could balance the books and find the resources.”

“Could we just do it quietly? I think we’ll get enough attention afterwards.”

“Brienne, we can go to the godswood and swear our vows before the heart tree as they do in the North.” The venue, the tradition, the guests-- _none_ of that matters.

She pauses for a second, brow furrowed in thought, “Queen Sansa could preside.”

“I think that’s _perfect.”_

* * *

When Jaime tells her the next day, Sansa, in an outburst of emotion uncharacteristic of her, _hugs_ him. She pulls away quickly, twisting her hands together and regaining her usual composure. Behind her, Margaery is smiling, one corner of her mouth quirked to the side.

“I’d be _honored_ ,” Sansa tells him, “I’ve never presided over a wedding before, but I’ve seen enough in the godswood at Winterfell.”

“Do you not follow the faith of the Seven?” Margaery asks. She doesn’t sound like she’s admonishing him; she doesn’t strike Jaime as the most devout, either.

 _The gods have done little for me_. They protected Brienne, though, and mayhaps that was worth lighting a candle at the statue of the Warrior next time he was in the sept. “My faith is in Brienne,” he answers.

“How romantic.” Margaery smiles even wider and loops her arm through Sansa’s, “You’ll need a new dress, my queen.”

Sansa sighs, “There’s no need to call me that, especially not before people we know.”

“But it’s what you are,” Margaery answers, “It’s mild here, yet you still dress like you’re fit to go out in a blizzard.”

_Margaery must really care for Sansa, to put up with that damned weather._

“I dress like I always dress,” Sansa replies.

Jaime surveys their sartorial choices for the first time--Sansa’s dress is long-sleeved, but the material certainly isn’t as heavy as she would wear at Winterfell. Even with her Tully features, she looks of the North, just as Jon does. It’s an air about him. Margaery’s dress is revealing, a shimmery green that leaves her whole back bare.

They make a nice picture, the two of them. And, from the faint blush coloring Sansa’s cheeks, she is happy. Jaime is proud of her, and hopes that fact would annoy Ned Stark to no end. 

“I’ve no right to speak this, Queen Sansa,” Jaime says, “but your father and mother would be proud of you.”

“You’ve as much right as anyone,” she answers.

Margaery looks between the two of them, “The real question here is what is Brienne going to wear?”


	11. Jon IV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Would your sister be willing to officiate a marriage?"
> 
> Jaime asks the question before even greeting Jon. For some reason, his brain jumps to Arya and he blurts that.
> 
> "The other sister, Jon," Jaime replies, "The one that won't stab me to death and steal my face."
> 
> "Oh, Sansa?" Jon must be tired because what Jaime actually asked crashes through the haze in his mind. "Wait--you asked?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only one more chapter to go! I'm so reluctant to leave this universe behind. 😭
> 
> The flashback scene at the end of this chapter is told from Satin's POV in the first chapter of [A Good Man](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22732120/chapters/54320677). The Satin version of the scene is intended to be read first, but it works either way.
> 
> I hope everyone enjoys the chapter!

At Castle Black, the new recruits befriended Satin, but Jon was the only senior officer in the Night’s Watch who was impressed with him. Bowen Marsh asked him if he ever thought the men of the Night’s Watch would follow a whore into battle. Jon thought _they’ve followed worse._

Satin was clever, and a fast learner, but he had _a lot_ to learn. The fire in Jon’s chambers would often die, and Jon remembers teaching Satin how to saddle a horse.

“My apologies, my lord,” Satin stumbled the first time he realized he couldn’t complete the task Jon had assigned him. “I’ve never--”

“It’s fine,” Jon took up the task himself, adjusting the straps on the saddle where Satin left them too loose. “I did this myself for a long time. Watch.”

Satin didn’t take his eyes from Jon’s movements until he was done. “There wasn’t much need for this...before. I’ll be able to do it next time.”

Satin doesn’t _need_ Jon’s protection, but in the days following his arrival, Jon finds himself silently offering it regardless. The Red Keep isn’t dangerous. Satin was a brother of the Night’s Watch and was raised in a dangerous environment. He felt protective of Satin long before he felt affection, or desire, or the new feeling that creeps up on him in the middle of the night and startles him awake.

Jon tries not to make it too obvious--Satin is intuitive, especially at reading him, and Jon doesn’t yet know how to articulate what he’s feeling. _You’re my brother_ , he might say. Or _you deserve someone who will watch over you._ No longer were they part of the shield that guards the realms of men, but the personal nature of the charge fills Jon with as great a sense of duty as swearing an oath below a tree.

He knows better, now, that duty can lie with the heart.

What Jon frets about most is that Satin won’t fit in--that he ventured the distance and will come to resent the trappings it comes with. It’s the same fear Jaime had regarding Brienne, but Jon can’t ascribe the advice he’d given Jaime in the same situation. Jaime stated it simply, turning Jon’s advice on him like the tide of a battle. His answer is _love_ , and _that’s_ a terrifying concept.

_Did love lead Satin to cross half of Westeros to see me?_

Jon isn’t sure what to do with that kind of devotion. He only has himself to offer freely--his time and his protection. Brienne can be a queen--Satin can only be Jon’s lover. He has nothing to offer--no posting, no lands or titles, no riches or any other boon. Satin wouldn’t want gifts. Gifts will _surely_ make Satin feel like a whore, and Jon has gone leagues and leagues to let Satin know that he doesn’t feel that way. 

When he gets out of his own head about it and actually _watches_ Satin, Jon feels better.

Satin is gregarious, much more so that Jon could ever hope to be. It’s not like Jaime’s outgoingness, either, which is tempestuous and often performative. Jon starts to _listen_ , and he realizes Satin is making friends. The first, oddly enough, is Brienne. It perplexes Jon until he watches them talking a few days after their first meeting in his solar. Satin tells her a story, complete with gesticulations and voice impressions, and Brienne listens the entire time.

_It’s the opposite of the reason Brienne and I sit in awkward silence._

Satin talks, and Brienne listens with a small smile on her face.

“I like Ser Brienne,” Satin tells him, “She’s...calming.”

“Calming?”

He hasn’t said, but Jon suspects Satin is a bit wary around so many highborn. It’s the reason he sends Ghost with Satin when he ventures out. That, and Ghost _likes_ Satin, and Jon feels bad for how much time the direwolf spends at his feet under a table.

“Like you,” Satin replies, “I’m not sure how to explain it.”

“She’s fine company. I’m afraid the two of us don’t have the most exciting conversations, though.”

The servants tell Jon how _nice_ his new steward is, and Jon doesn’t know how to correct them, so he just agrees. Jon isn’t about to tell the woman who brings him his laundry that Satin is his lover. Satin goes to the kitchens and returns with fruit and treats Jon didn’t even know existed in the city since the war ended. When he leaves the Keep, sometimes he returns with things Jon has never even _seen_ , like packets of spices from Essos and dates.

It’s a good sign for the city’s economy that people can afford luxury items, but unless Satin is stealing from the royal coffers, Jon doesn’t see _how_ he’s getting the sundry goods. None are in large quantities, but nothing is free.

He lets it go until Satin brings a bottle of wine from the Arbor and drops it on Jon’s desk.

“Have you had this before?” Satin peers through the rose-colored liquid. Jon knows little about wine, and even he knows it’s quality.

“Never,” Jon replies, “Have _you?”_

Satin glances away, the back to Jon, “It’s more common in Oldtown, a customer, once--a wealthy merchant--I couldn’t really enjoy it.”

Jon wants to pull Satin into the chair with him and hold him, but the gesture feels like it would be more for him than for Satin. He asks his question instead, “Satin, how do you keep acquiring these items?”

“Sex is a powerful bartering tool,” Satin grins.

He must pale because Satin’s grin falls quite dramatically. “Jon, _no--_ ” he rounds the desk and rests his hands on Jon’s shoulders. “I flirted _a bit_ for the wine. The merchant’s wife lowered the price. All the things from the kitchens are just because I’m friendly.”

“People keep telling me how nice you are.”

“It’s only because I speak to people no one notices.”

“I notice them; Jaime does, too.”

Satin smiles again, “The people are grateful. I tell them I’m your steward, and they’re _very_ generous.” 

“Satin, you’re not--”

“It’s a fine cover,” he shrugs, “Some didn’t believe me, regardless.”

“What do they think?”

“That the Hand of the King has taken a man as his lover,” he leans in a bit, close enough that Jon’s racing heart will betray his nerves. “Then, they seem curious about the kind of man Jon Snow would choose.”

 _Of course people are already talking._ Curiosity is better than disgust, although the tide of public opinion could easily shift.

“Have care,” Jon advises, “Some people won’t understand.”

Satin takes the corkscrew off the desk and opens the wine before pouring a glass for each of them. The taste of the wine is sweet, like summer in a bottle. Wine still in hand, Satin perches on the arm of Jon’s chair. 

“Won’t Ghost protect me?”

The direwolf’s head pops up at hearing his name. Jon focuses on that instead of the fact that Satin noticed his ploy.

“You noticed?”

“Of course,” Satin leans in and kisses Jon on the forehead. The tenderness of it makes Jon redden more than a dozen more salacious activities would. Satin pulls back and takes a drink of his wine, “It’s quite a _you_ sort of gesture.”

* * *

"Would your sister be willing to officiate a marriage?"

Jaime asks the question before even greeting Jon. For some reason, his brain jumps to Arya and he blurts that.

"The _other_ sister, Jon," Jaime replies, "The one that won't stab me to death and steal my face."

"Oh, Sansa?" Jon must be tired because _what_ Jaime _actually_ asked crashes through the haze in his mind. "Wait--you _asked?"_

Smugly, Jaime replies, "No."

"But you're going to?"

"Also no."

"Jaime, word games are too taxing."

Somehow, Jaime ups the smugness. It's so blinding and insufferable that Jon averts his eyes.

"Brienne asked _me,_ and only an utter fool would refuse to marry Brienne of Tarth."

"And you want Sansa to--a Northern wedding?"

"For the comfort of our Northern guests."

Jon's certain there's more to it than that. Brienne certainly won't want an entire sept of people staring at her. Jon won't say that, instead his mind jumps to the logistics "Is this about resources?"

"It seems like an excess," Jaime replies, "And I want some measure of privacy, at least for the ceremony. There won't be any after."

"Sansa would be _thrilled,"_ Jon answers, "She and Margaery will _absolutely_ plan a feast for you."

"...Can we afford it?"

Jon finds himself smiling, "Of course. You're the _king._ You can have whatever you desire."

"Privacy," Jaime sounds wistful, "Maybe a trip to Tarth to celebrate my nuptials."

"Go," Jon hears himself say without giving the idea any thought, "I think we can manage without you japing and kissing babes for a few weeks."

"Is that all you think I do?"

"Isn't that all _you_ think you do?"

"...No."

Jaime is laughing merrily--he looks _happy,_ and Jon stares for a second too long. The sight makes Jon's heart do a little tumble, like looking down over a high ledge. He could gawk openly and be confident Jaime would never notice, and something about that is comforting.

He can support Jaime from where he is, and the feeling will dull, and Jon can live with that, happily. A nice secret.

"You'll have _privacy_ on Tarth," now Jon sounds wistful.

"Privacy with Lord Selwyn Tarth, who--keep in mind--I've _never_ met. His _only_ daughter, who I dishonored before we were wed."

Jon shrugs, "Just hide behind Brienne."

"Is it Satin Flower's fault you jest now?"

"I've always jested."

Jaime rolls his eyes, "And if you want privacy, go to the Quiet Isle and swear a vow of silence. You're sullen enough to fit right in."

Jon sighs and thinks of the rumors swirling around, "I'm _almost_ tempted."

* * *

The gossip doesn’t take long to spread--within a few days, it reaches Jon’s ears inside the Red Keep. Even his siblings and Jaime are not immune; they’d met to discuss _business_ , and somehow ended up discussing Satin Flowers.

“I _detest_ it,” Jon crosses his arms as he says the words, hunching his shoulders in a way that makes Sansa, Arya, _and_ Jaime all start chuckling at him.

Jaime shrugs, “It’s to be expected that the smallfolk will talk, even more so because they like you.”

Jon doesn’t have _near_ the reputation Jaime garnered over the last year, but the people of King’s Landing _do_ wave and smile at him as he passes, and seem grateful when he checks in on the various works and projects throughout the city.

“Some younger folk think it’s romantic,” Arya says, “but there’s also some people whining about the inappropriateness of it.”

“People complain about _everything;_ there’s really no right approach,” Jaime shrugs again, “You do too much of one thing, one crowd becomes incensed. You do too little, another repeats it.”

“The Kingslayer’s right,” Arya agrees.

“Besides,” Jaime continues, “it’s entertainment for the smallfolk, to speculate who those at court are keeping in their beds. Let them have their fun. At least they don’t whisper that lover is your sister.”

They _all_ wince internally, but only Arya lets the disgust show on her face. Jaime lets it pass without comment.

“Jon,” Sansa reaches out to him with a comforting hand on his arm, “we sacrifice pieces of ourselves for the good of others. Are you _happy?”_

“I am.”

Sansa gives him a rare smile, earned by his response, “Then what is tavern gossip?”

“Irritating,” Jon answers.

Arya says, “Bullshit” at the exact same moment.

Jaime laughs, “I don’t disagree.”

“I must say, though, Jon,” Sansa is still smiling, but it’s _not_ the one from before; she’s going to nettle him. “Of _all_ the people in Westeros, male _or_ female, you chose someone who’s _guaranteed_ to garner attention.”

“Kings bedding whores isn’t new,” Jaime scratches his chin, “Robert did so _constantly,_ but I don’t think he _ever_ brought one into the castle.”

“Lord Tyrion did, too,” Sansa says, “As Hand.”

“If I wanted a whore, the Street of Silk is _filled_ with them.” In much, _much_ nicer buildings than before. Jon’s half-risen from his chair, and he sits back down and resists the urge to look at his feet. He was _always_ doing that--going a bit too far to a place where people looked at him like he’d gone mad. Like treating with the Free Folk, or thinking Sansa should be queen over Bran.

“I like him,” Arya declares like that’s the end of any discussion.

“Jon’s been a lot more cheerful these last few days,” Jaime smirks and looks at him, “Regular fucking will have that effect.”

Arya’s laugh is near maniacal, and even Sansa is smiling into her hand. “Companionship is lovely,” she says demurely. Then, “And someone...experienced is a boon as well.”

“Ugh,” Arya scowls, “I _don’t_ want to hear this. It’s bad enough at Winterfell, your chambers are too close to mine, and--”

“There’s _no way_ you can hear--”

“Oh _yes_ I can--”

“Children,” Jaime almost shouts. Jon is grateful because he doesn’t necessarily want to think about Sansa and Margaery’s private life. He doesn’t want any of them to talk about _his_ either. “And I think Jon enjoys the experience of young Satin Flowers _quite_ thoroughly. Or, at least he seemed to be doing so when I walked in on them the other day.”

There’s _more_ laughter, this time from both his sisters, and Jon buries his face in his hands.

* * *

The first time Satin appeared in Jon’s bed wasn’t romantic or sexual, it was just _cold._

Even Jon, with the North in his blood, couldn’t seem to find a spot of warmth in the Lord Commander’s chambers. Castle Black was notoriously drafty, and the fire in his room might as well have not existed. Snow drifts piled high around the walls, and Jon was certain he was the only one shivering alone under the furs on his bed. Everyone else was surely huddled together for warmth, even if none of the men would talk about it on the morrow.

If Jon was cold, though, Satin must be _miserable._

Jon sent his steward away for the evening not two bells ago; Satin was friends with the other recruits, and Jon hoped he spent the evening socializing. Assuming Satin had returned by now, Jon knocked on the door adjoining their chambers. 

“My lord,” Satin answered the door wrapped in what appeared like the entirety of his wardrobe and furs from his bed. His teeth were chattering. “H-have you need of me?”

“No, I thought you might be chilled. The fire is smaller in your chambers, and you’re--”

“...From the Reach, where it’s _warm._ ”

“...Yes.”

“I’m adapting,” Sating replied as a shiver came over him.

Jon, moved by the sight of his steward’s brave face, replied, “All the men are sleeping close together tonight. My chambers are warmer, and there’s Ghost.”

He expected Satin to reject the offer, but instead, he pushed past Jon in the doorway and plopped before the fire where Ghost was laying. The direwolf liked Satin, and Jon found Ghost to be an _excellent_ judge of character. Satin began scratching his ears and Ghost thumped his tail on the fur rug covering the floor.

“You’re right, my lord, this room _is_ warmer.”

“Ghost shares the bed on nights like this,” Satin will sleep on the floor before the fire if Jon isn’t explicit in his offer. “...To sleep,” Jon finished, although the addition was unneeded.

A wave of confusion crossed Satin’s face, “Really, my lord?”

Jon nodded stiffly. There was nothing untoward about his suggestion; he recalled Sansa sharing beds with Jeyne Poole and her other friends and handmaidens. This was just the same. Satin must have been too frozen to argue because when Ghost jumped onto the bed, Satin dropped his furs atop the pile already there and crawled under the blankets.

Stupidly, Jon had thought Ghost would sleep between them. Wasn’t there a story like that? Where a knight and his lady love slept with a sword between them to preserve her virtue?

There was lots of talk, by then, of Satin’s _lack_ of virtue.

When Jon slid under the blankets, he lay on his back staring at the wooden beams on the ceiling. Satin, in the center of the bed, curled around Ghost and let out a contented sigh.

“Thank you,” he said after a few moments of silence, “This is _so_ much warmer. I thought I’d be an icicle in the morning in my room.” 

“Think nothing of it.”

Jon slept soundly that night, warmed by the heat coming off of both Satin _and_ Ghost. In the morning, he’d woken wrapped around Satin, who still had his face buried in Ghost’s nape. Satin, still hopefully asleep, shifted slightly, and that’s when Jon realized his cock was as hard as the ice on the fucking Wall.

All he could think was _fuck._

His body’s reactions weren’t completely in his control. He’d awoken in a similar situation next to Ygritte more than once. When she noticed, she laughed deviously and rubbed her backside against him. When that wasn’t sufficient, she flipped over and touched him with her cold, _cold_ hands.

_Would Satin do that?_

Jon felt ashamed for even desiring Satin without his consent. Satin’s slender frame felt _good_ against him, entirely different than Ygritte. _He’s a man, and he certainly doesn’t want his Lord Commander seeking to bed him._ He tried to banish the thought from his mind, and moved away from Satin before he awoke and _noticed._ It didn’t stop him from _looking_. Satin’s nose was buried in Ghost’s white fur, and his face was relaxed in sleep. The sight of him looking so content next to Ghost made something in Jon’s chest ache.

This morning is similar, but different in so many meaningful ways.

It’s not so cold, and they’re not buried under a league of furs. Satin is still tucked between Ghost and him, only this time Jon feels no compulsion to move, and no shame at any reaction he may have. Satin stirs and does exactly what Jon expects him to--wriggles against him and laughs when Jon inhales sharply. 

“Good morning,” Jon says feebly.

“ _You_ think so,” Satin answers, “Do you remember the first time we slept like this?”

“Having Ghost here made it come to mind.”

“I think I awoke before you,” Satin tucks his face into Ghost’s fur, “I didn’t want to move.”

“ _Oh_.” Jon suddenly feels terribly embarrassed, “That means you _felt--”_

Satin nods, “You didn’t touch me at all, and you could have."

“I--I’d never just _force_ myself on anyone _.”_

He turns to look at Jon, “It wouldn’t have been forced."

Jon scowls, “You were under my command, and _asleep.”_

Satin smiles at him but looks a little sad, “When I was younger, I used to wish for someone who would choose me.”

“Satin--”

“I wanted that _someone_ , whoever they were, to take me away and keep me. There’s no one like that, of course. That morning, I wanted you to touch me, and _you_ wanted to, and you didn’t.”

“Did that...displease you?”

“You had authority over me; you _knew_ where I came from. I'd never met a man who wouldn't have touched me at that moment.”

Jon remembers the roster list at Castle Black and the crimes people were sent to the Wall for. Satin was maligned for having sex, and it made _so_ little sense. “My father would’ve done the same.”

“Then Ned Stark was a good man.”

Jon finds himself smiling, “He was.”

“You were embarrassed,” Satin moves until he’s half atop Jon and their noses are inches apart. He can _feel_ Satin’s interest, despite the somber tone of their conversation. “It charmed me.”

"I was," Jon admits, "Then I watched you for a moment, and realized it wasn’t _just_ my body reacting.”

“I decided to be loyal to you, even if you never acted on it."

“But _you_ kissed me.”

Satin looks abashed, “I grew impatient when I realized your hesistence was bound up in our stations.”

“That _still_ concerns me.”

A kiss is Satin’s answer, sleepy and languid while his hair tickles Jon’s cheeks. Jon pulls him the rest of the way together, letting out a hiss of pleasure as they bump into one another. Ghost, disgruntled at their movements, lets out a low grumble that makes Satin laugh.

“You’ve upset Ghost,” Satin says.

Jon wondered, the first night, if it was trust or submission--now he has his answer. The trust is like a balm for his nerves. “Satin, what do you want to do here?”

“I came here for you.”

 _That’s how he always responds._ “Is that enough?” It’s selfish, for Satin’s words to make him as happy as they do.

Satin ponders for a second before answering, “I’d like to be useful to someone who’s doing something good.”

“You’re not my steward any longer, and you’ve _never_ been--” Boy. Pet. _Whore--_ things people will likely say again because keeping a secret here is impossible.

“People are saying those things already _._ ”

“I can bear it. Can you?”

“I was what I was, and now I want to be here.”

Satin makes a _very_ appealing feature in his bed, especially now that Jon isn’t an idiot about it. Blinking sleepily as he is now, lounging on the bed in the afternoon like he’s waiting for Jon to find him there. Satin’s smile is _all_ seduction; it makes Jon’s heart stutter in his chest to be the object of a look like that.

“We don’t have to do _this_ either,” Jon has to pry the words out of himself because he _does_ want to keep doing all these things with Satin. In contradiction, Jon tightens his grip a fraction.

“You _don’t_ want me in your bed?” The mock-offense is clear in Satin’s tone. “Have I been mistaken all these nights?”

 _“_ I want you to choose it freely.”

Satin’s smile isn’t coy any longer, "Aiding you is an honor, and sharing your bed is a pleasure.”

“And that doesn’t make you feel…?”

“Like a whore?” Satin laughs, “When you didn’t touch me that night, I knew I’d never feel that way with you.”

Jon touches Satin’s hair. Satin’s eyes widen a fraction before falling shut; he gives a sigh that Jon recognizes as contented, and turns his head a bit to give Jon access to more of his scalp.

“I’m thinking too hard again,” Jon mumbles.

“It’s good of you.”

“Everytime I enter my chambers, and you’re in my bed; it’s like you’re _waiting.”_

“I’m seducing you,” Satin laughs, “I’d hope to _at least_ be able to manage that.”

“Is it as effortless as it seems?” He has _no_ idea about seduction, unless Satin is enticed by his variety of sullen expressions. Satin seems to make a performance of it, but perhaps it’s just Jon’s own desire that makes it seem so acute.

“There’s an art,” Satin replies, “Things _most_ people react to. I don’t find them needed here.”

 _So, this is just Satin._ Graceful, alluring Satin, who straddles him and presses his hips against Jon’s. He kisses Satin, hands still in the tumble of his curls, pulls him down until they’re pressed together, warm weight and friction and no space between them. They tustle a bit, during the kiss, and Jon inadvertently kicks Ghost when Satin very, _very_ deliberately moves his hips so their cocks rub together.

Jon glances over to where Ghost’s red eyes look mildly irritated, “He’s glaring.”

“We woke him,” Satin cruelly, _delightfully_ , nips at Jon’s earlobe, “Then you kicked him.”

“I’ll let little Sam ride him later.”

“That isn’t...a punishment?”

“He likes it...I _think_.”

Ghost looks away, which is good. Even under the blankets, Jon doesn’t want Ghost looking when he slides the pants Satin wears for sleeping down over his hips. Satin reaches for his in turn, and after some fervent kicking, both are gone.

The fervent kicking makes Ghost huff through his nostrils and jump off the bed.

“Now we drove him away,” Satin laughs.

“Would you prefer him as a voyeur?”

Satin bites his lip, seems to ponder the idea, before shrugging, “I’ve been watched by worse than your direwolf.”

And Jon is never, _never_ going to be able to reconcile the fact that Satin recounts horrible, _horrible_ events with such aplomb. 

“Jon, you don’t have to pull that face each time,” Satin kisses him before reaching to the bedside table. “Joking makes me feel better about it, but I can stop.”

“No,” Jon shakes his head, “It’s alright.”

The sentiment seems to delight Satin because he looks at Jon, as innocent as he ever has, and straddles him again. The motion is anything but innocent.

He passes the oil to Jon under the blankets, "At your pleasure.”

Jon coats his fingers, searching Satin's expression for any discomfort as he presses into him. He thinks of gentleness, and of his capacity to return it, and the trust Satin places in him. Satin smiles and nods, so Jon continues. Eventually, he drops his forehead to Jon’s shoulder and pants softly into his ear. 

"You’re getting better," Satin whispers, "I'm glad I asked."

"You're ready?"

Satin nods, then guides himself down onto Jon.

It's slow, after that, and all Jon can think of is how _good_ Satin feels--soft and pliant above him, but strong enough to overcome the events of his life. Satin lets him set the pace, and Jon is content to let the languid nature of the rest of the morning pour into the act between them. He keeps his face buried in the pillow; Jon wonders if he’s embarrassed.

“Satin.”

His cheeks are flushed when he looks up the vulnerability in his expression fills Jon with such a wave of affection that he almost can’t get his words out, “You’re first this morning.”

Momentary confusion clouds his features until Jon slides his hand between them, and Satin lets out a tiny _oh_ , more a breath really, and moves to give Jon space. Satin shuts his eyes and turns his head slightly, brow furrowing as he climaxes. Close already, Jon follows, rides the crest and the fall of it with Satin’s hands pressing his shoulders against the mattress.

It takes a long while before Jon is ready to speak, but when he does, he says, “I’m happy like this.”

“I’m happy, too,” Satin smiles down at him, “Does the realm need you this morning?”

“The realm isn’t in my bed,’ Jon paraphrases Jaime, “I think anything can wait until the next bell.”

“Good. We should let Ghost out, though. He’s suffered enough as a witness.”


	12. Brienne IV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pod is yelling at the King of Westeros.
> 
> Brienne can hear him through the door to Jaime’s rooms. Like a child listening to a conversation not meant for her, she presses her ear to the door and hopes to hear more.
> 
> “I didn’t ask Brienne to marry me,” Jaime says, “There’s no need.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THIS IS IT, GUYS. 😭
> 
> Writing and sharing this fic with all of you has been an absolute blast! Thank you so much for reading and commenting and leaving kudos. I have more side content for this universe planned.

Pod is yelling at the King of Westeros.

Brienne can hear him through the door to Jaime’s rooms. Like a child listening to a conversation not meant for her, she presses her ear to the door and hopes to hear more.

“I didn’t ask Brienne to marry me,” Jaime says, “There’s no need.”

“No need! How could you say that, after all the two of you have been through?”

 _Oh no._ She hadn’t seen Pod in over a day; it’s better _not_ to ask how the lad spends his time. Every serving girl in King’s Landing probably has a clear enough idea. Pod doesn’t buy whores, so Brienne supposes his activities are his own business. 

“I’m well aware of what we’ve been through, Pod.”

 _He sounds so smug._ Pod, unfortunately, is talking his way right into Jaime’s word trap.

“Then how can you not wed her? Ser Brienne _loves_ you. No one loves _anyone_ like she loves you.” Pod’s pitch increases until his voice isn’t muffled by the door. “Are you a coward?”

 _Pod is quite brave._ Her former squire charged at wights at Winterfell and would apparently call a king a coward over her honor. It’s foolhardy, and Pod is lucky the king is Jaime, but Brienne smiles. It’s a bit of a shame that Jaime is riling him up for no reason other than his desire to tease.

“I _am_ a coward about a great many things,” Jaime replies, “but not about Brienne.”

“You’re talking me in circles,” Pod probably has his hands balled into fist at his sides, “I’ve spent a _long_ time around the two of you.”

Brienne can picture Jaime’s smirk perfectly. “Young Podrick, do you think I’m jesting?”

“I don’t know,” Pod replies, “but I know you love her. I know they sing about the two of you. I know that I’ve spent every day of the last year with her, watching her miss you and put on a brave face.”

 _Pod._ There’s a burning behind Brienne’s eyes, and she closes them to stop it. Aside from Jaime, no one is more loyal to her than Pod. She takes a deep breath and knocks on the door. It takes a moment, but Pod opens the door and goes _very_ red in the face when he sees Brienne.

“Ser--” he stumbles; it makes him seem young again, like when they first met, “I--I--were you there the _whole_ time?”

Brienne nods, and Jaime gives an uproarious laugh.

“And it would be too much to assume the door...blocked the sound?”

“ _Way_ too much to assume,” Jaime chimes in.

Pod blushes intensely, even more so than the time on Tarth when Brienne found him in a compromising position with one of the laundry girls at Evenfall. She doubts he’d blush about such a thing, now--she looked away for a moment, and when she looked back, Pod was a man grown.

He looks _very_ much like a boy, now, though.

“I--I was just,” he runs his hand over his face, “Defending you, ser. I suppose I got ahead of myself.”

“It’s alright,” Brienne doesn’t try and hide her smile, “Just be glad the king is Jaime, and not anyone else.”

Jaime claps Pod on the back, “I’d never punish one of my subjects for his overzealous defense of my future queen.”

It takes Pod a moment, but his eyes go _very_ wide, “But you _just_ said you didn’t ask her.”

 _“I_ didn’t,” Jaime’s been wearing the same smug look since she proposed, “Brienne asked _me_.”

_“Oh.”_

Brienne reddens, “It wasn’t like that, we just _discussed--”_

“I fell to my knees and _weeped,_ Ser Podrick.”

“You _did not.”_

Jaime laughs, “It was _exactly_ like that, don’t listen to her.”

“If anyone weeped, it wouldn’t be you, ser,” Pod looks at Brienne; he’s grinning, now, too. “We all know Ser Jaime is the maudlin one.”

Brienne’s not entirely sure Pod has the right of it because she feels a bit like _she’s_ going to cry.

* * *

They write a series of letters.

Brienne watches, silently, over Jaime’s shoulder as he pens a response to his aunt, Genna Frey. His letters are blocky and childish, but much better than they were at the beginning. 

_Dearest Aunt Genna,_

_I’ve done as you bid and chosen a bride. Well, she chose me, but the end result is one you’ll determine favorable._

“She wrote you demanding you wed?”

“Even better,” Jaime digs around his desk for the letter and passes it to Brienne. “She told me my duty was to produce heirs. She offered _instruction._ The letter was too much; I made young Satin Flowers suffer through reading it.”

Brienne can’t help but think _poor Satin._

“Is that all you intend to say?”

“Not at all. She’ll want to know I’m properly in line.”

Jaime continues writing.

_Her name is Brienne of Tarth. She’s highborn, and heir to her house, so you should have no objections. I don’t even think Father would’ve found reason to object to her, which might be the only thing we could ever agree on._

“Jaime, do you genuinely think Tywin Lannister would’ve liked me?”

He laughs, “I don’t think Tywin Lannister _liked_ anyone, but I think...in another life, he would’ve thought you could bind me to my duty as his heir, and _that_ he would’ve liked. He’s doing flips in his grave over Tyrion holding Casterly Rock.”

_Even if you had objections, I wouldn’t entertain them, which you should expect from me. Additionally, I’m your king and can do as I please._

Then, Jaime signs his name, including every possible title. By the end of it, the penmanship is shakier and Jaime drops the quill and shakes his hand.

“Are you being passive aggressive?”

“Absolutely.”

Brienne’s letter is _much_ different; Jaime watches over her shoulder as she writes it.

 _Dear Father,_ she starts, _this probably won’t come as a surprise…_

“Really? You think he knew?”

“He told me to come here, and that Tarth wasn’t going anywhere if I needed to leave to find my happiness.”

“To have a father who utters such words,” Jaime shakes his head, “It was all _duty_ this, and _duty_ that from my father. What will Selwyn Tarth think of me?”

“You’re his king,” Brienne glances back to him, “Do you think he’ll raise an objection? I’ve gone through three bethorals of his choice and refused just as many myself in the last year.”

 _“I’m_ the winner.”

Brienne isn’t sure she’s much of a prize, but Jaime is smiling, and that’s all that matters, “He’ll come here, and we should wait. I think he’ll like you, but marrying before he gets here won’t do us any favors.”

She feels Jaime’s hand against her scarred cheek, and he turns her head so their eyes meet. He’s smiling, and the sight fills Brienne with a sense of joy and peace that she can scarcely believe belongs in her life. Jaime leans down and kisses her, slowly and without insistence, until she forgets entirely about the letter.

“I can wait, Brienne,” he says when they part, “Waiting is easy when what you’re waiting for isn’t something you ever thought would come to pass.”

Brienne ends the letter with _Father,_ _I’d like you to be here._

* * *

Brienne’s proposal is not, technically, the first time she discussed marriage with Jaime. It hadn’t been _their_ marriage, of course, but rather her string of failed betrothals.

There weren’t many quiet moments at Winterfell in the midst of a war, but Jaime seemed to enjoy seeking them out and grating on _every_ single one of Brienne’s nerves. If it hadn’t been so damned cold, she might have expended more energy fighting him off.

“I know of one,” Jaime taunted her one evening in the great hall. He made a habit of sitting close to her and talking _incessantly_ through meals. Brienne put on a mask of irritation, but his company distracted her from the waning quality of their food stores. It was easier to be mildly perturbed than hungry.

 _How does he know of one?_ Brienne is _certain_ she never told anyone, let alone Jaime, about her continual disappointment of her father until he gave up and let her sail for Storm’s End. She tries to recall letting something slip on the few occasions Jaime or Hyle goaded her into drinking ale.

“Do you, now? Which one is that?” She tried to keep a neutral face, but Jaime read her emotions easily, especially after so much continued exposure. Was it Henry Wagstaff? It surely wasn’t the one who died before they even met. Jaime probably wasn’t talking about her continued refusals of Hyle.

“Ronnet Connington,” Jaime sounded _very_ smug.

Of all the choices, _that_ was the worst. Henry Wagstaff she beat with a mace; Ronnet Connington had mocked her, and there was no recourse for her shame. She _still_ can’t stand to look at roses, not that there are any to be had at Winterfell.

Brienne blushed with shame rather than embarrassment. She wanted to slide under the table, but there’s no way she would fit. _“How?”_ she managed to squeak out.

“I met him at Harrenhal,” Jaime answered, “Right near where we fought our ill-fated bear.”

“A-and he _told_ you?”

“He spoke unkindly toward you.” That Jaime doesn’t lie and flatter her is actually a kindness. He paused, and Brienne couldn’t tell if it was for dramatic effect or if he was embarrassed. “I _may_ have slapped him with my golden hand.”

If Brienne was holding anything, she would’ve dropped it. “ _Pardon me?”_

“He might’ve lost a tooth. It was quite gratifying.”

“But _why?”_

“Because you’re a highborn lady. You can defend your own honor much better than I,” Jaime thumped the golden hand on the wooden table. “However, in your absence, the task falls to me.”

Brienne’s cheeks, the whole and the scarred, had burned for _hours_ at the thought.

Weeks later, under much different circumstances, Jaime brought the conversation up again.

“Ronnet Connington was an _utter_ fool,” he whispered into her ear. 

Brienne wasn’t accustomed to Jaime being so _close_ \--every word, every scrape of his beard against sensitive patches of skin, overwhelmed her. Even sleeping side-by-side like this was too intimate; she didn’t know what to do with the feelings it gave her. Desire, frustration, and a strange sense of peace despite the conflict around them.

“He was cruel,” she answered, breathless, “but no more so than others.”

“You’ll forgive me for reaping the benefits of what they were too blind to see.”

* * *

Sansa is inspecting her.

“A gown?”

Margaery nods, “A gown, but _simple.”_

“Blue,” Sansa hums to herself and nods, “Do you have a cloak?”

Brienne shakes her head, “It’s too warm, and I--”

Margaery smirks, “It’s _almost_ like she didn’t sail from Tarth expecting to be a bride, Sansa.”

“I...did not,” Brienne answers, “expect it, I mean.”

 _Who would?_ Even with the personal nature of Jaime’s summons, the idea that _she_ would be the one to ask was beyond her imagination.

“Because King Jaime is a _fool_ who can’t use his words,” Sansa shakes her head.

“He’s a man,” Margaery shrugs, ”It’s to be expected.”

“I’ll make your maiden’s cloak,” Sansa holds up a bolt of blue fabric.

 _I’m no maiden,_ Brienne thinks, but there’s little need to broadcast that. It’s too much for Sansa Stark to spend her time sewing a cloak or a gown. 

“You’re a queen, Sansa,” Brienne deflects, “Helping is one thing, but there’s no need for you to sew--”

Sansa puts the bolt of fabric at her feet then puts her hands on her hips. She looks so, so much like Catelyn, and it only increases as she matures. “You’re my truest friend, my _knight_. You and Jaime brought me home. I’d sew your cloak no matter what I was ruler of.”

Brienne feels the burning behind her eyes again. “Of course,” she nods, “I’d be honored to wear it.” 

“That’s good,” Margaery puts one hand on each of their shoulders, “Have you attempted to tell Sansa no? It goes poorly, and I _don’t_ mean because of her royal authority.”

“Margaery, that’s not--”

“You’re stubborn, Sansa; it’s a fine trait.”

 _Both_ of them chuckle.

The whole afternoon is a feminine experience Brienne has never had before. She expects ridicule in spaces like this, and by people such as Sansa and Margaery.

Sansa and Margaery aren’t like that, though--they chat while Brienne stands there like a statue, but none of their words are biting. She’s a bit anxious at first, their chatter is calming, even if Brienne doesn’t have much to add. 

Brienne lets Sansa prod at her with pins and drape fabric around her. The experience dredges up unpleasant memories of the seamstress her father hired when she was a girl, who complained loudly that no cut or color could _possibly_ fix her. She was already tall by then, and too broad shouldered to find a flattering cut for a bodice. Brienne has respect for feminine pursuits, but little experience or skill. She’s a touch envious of Sansa’s grace and strength.

At one point, Brienne is _convinced_ Margaery steals a kiss when Brienne’s view is obscured by fabric. Sansa’s reddened cheeks and Margaery’s smirk are the only true evidence.

_They seem happy._

It’s a fine way to spend an afternoon, in the company of other women and thinking about being a bride. 

* * *

Brienne’s father arrives.

He hugs her fiercely, then gives her a knowing smile, “If I knew how quickly you’d summon me here, I would’ve just travelled with you.”

“I--my apologies, Father.”

Shaking his head, he replies, “No matter. I _did_ start packing my bag as soon as you left the harbor.”

Brienne flushes, “You _expected_ this?”

“I _hoped_ ,” he takes her hands, “That the two of you would come to your senses ere long.”

Brenne’s a bit embarrassed at her own foolishness, and at the year spent on Tarth trying, desperately, to convince herself she was fine leaving things as they were.

“We spent too long with a misplaced sense of duty.”

Her father places his large, weathered hand on her shoulder--a gesture he’s done countless times since she was a child, “I knew you’d find your way eventually. I must confess I never expected my daughter to be a queen.”

 _That’s_ the portion of it Brienne’s been trying to avoid lingering on in her mind. She loves Jaime; she’s happy to stay in King’s Landing, but being queen is such an abstraction she struggles to associate it with being her future. Her father’s words make it real enough; she must look a bit ill because he continues speaking.

“That’s the bit you’re not looking forward to?” he guesses. “It’s quite a bit more than looking after Tarth, isn’t it?”

Brienne just nods fervently.

“I want to meet the king,” her father says a while later, once he’s been shown to his chambers and freshened up. “You’re my only daughter, so I must take measure of him, to see if he’s worthy.”

She nearly asks if her father would really adjudge the king of Westeros to his face, but she already knows the answer. _Of course he would._

Her father might not notice, but Jaime is _definitely_ nervous. He’s wearing the gold hand and the red of his house. Others might see them as a show of intimidation, but Brienne sees them for what they are--Jaime armoring himself in the ways he knows how. 

“Lord Tarth,” Jaime’s tone lacks _any_ hint of humor, “Welcome to King’s Landing. I must make my apologies that the crown can’t offer you a more elegant welcome.”

“If you can’t properly welcome your future wife’s father, how will you provide for my daughter once she is your queen?”

Jaime gapes, a bit like a fish, and Brienne glances from one of them to the other. _What is he doing?_ Her father _never_ stands on ceremony and lives simply considering he’s a lord.

“I, um,” Jaime flounders, “Since we began our reconstruction efforts, we avoid excess, regardless of who is visiting.”

Then, it occurs to Brienne that her father is testing Jaime. Jaime’s nerves are rather charming; he hides the golden hand when he’s anxious, which works against the ostentatiousness of wearing it in the first place. He also shifts a bit from one foot to the other. It amuses Brienne because not only is Jaime the _king_ , he’s also not an easy man to intimidate.

Her father starts laughing uproariously. He’s more jovial than she is, but Brienne wouldn’t call either of them humorous.

“That was a _good_ answer,” he says, “Pragmatic and honest. People speak well of you, and I agree with their assessments.”

“Father--” Brienne _almost_ wants to say he’s being discourteous, but Jaime interrupts her before she can finish.

“Are you _testing_ me?” Jaime sounds indignant but not angry. 

“Yes,” he answers, “You’re taking my heir and my only child.”

Brienne objects a _bit_ to her father’s wording, but wonders if it’s more of the test.

“My lord,” Jaime smirks, “You’ve known Ser Brienne _far_ longer than I have. Tell me, have you _ever_ known her to be taken anywhere she didn’t wish to go?”

_Jaime, why?_

“I must confess,” Selwyn smiles now, too, “That for the _longest_ time, I didn’t know what course to proceed with her. Raising a daughter alone had its challenges. Eventually, I realized that she had her own course in mind, and it was best to let her follow it.”

 _My own course_. The course of a knight, a sworn sword, a _queen._

Now, Brienne wishes _both_ of them would stop talking. She can't remember an instance where Jaime ever heeded her wish for his silence. She thinks of Jon, kissing Satin to stop the progression of _whatever_ Satin was going to say. The only way to halt Jaime's mouth is to occupy it with another task, and she’s not that bold.

"It's best to follow her while she goes about it, too. Brienne is a good influence, even from a distance." Jaime gives them both an amused grin. "Of course, our relationship began with her dragging me around, literally and bodily. Perhaps it gave me a taste for being under her influence."

"Will that continue once Brienne is your queen?"

"I'd have it no other way."

* * *

"You look lovely, Brienne," 

She must look skeptical because it's the second time Sansa has uttered the sentiment since Brienne started getting ready.

"There's no need to lie, Sansa." Brienne hasn't looked in a mirror yet, but when she does, she'll surely be greeted with the same face as usual.

"It's not a lie," Sansa smiles softly, "You look _happy,_ and that is worth more than all the beauty in the world.”

"I _am_ happy," Brienne smooths her hand over the fabric of her dress. It's blue, and _simple,_ and if Sansa says it suits her, Brienne trusts that. Even not having seen herself, she doesn’t feel too ridiculous in the dress. She’s sure she isn’t beautiful, but being comfortable with herself is enough.

"As well you should be; you're marrying a man who loves and respects you."

"I love him in return." Brienne smiles, thinking of Jaime. He's probably filled with nervous energy and pacing a hole in the floor about now.

A wistful expression crosses Sansa’s features, “You look like the kind of bride I dreamed of being as a girl."

Sansa’s _barely_ not a girl now, for all the grief and responsibility that’s been hefted on her shoulders.

“Surely you dreamed of being more beautiful.”

Sansa shakes her head, “I dreamed of a noble knight who would care for me. It was very childish. I even used to think the bedding ceremony seemed exciting. It’s not.”

_At least I don’t have to worry about that._

“I dreamed of the same as a girl.”

“It’s a fine dream, but I know now that it needn’t be a knight.”

“Sansa,” Brienne says, “If you’ve the desire, take Lady Margaery to the godswood. There’s nothing stopping you.”

“People won’t recognize it, even if I declare it. They think she’s my _friend_. Nevertheless...I think I might ask if she is willing. We’d know, and the old gods would know. That’s enough.”

“ _I’d_ recognize it,” she replies, “and I suppose I’ll be the queen.”

“You will be, but not if we don’t get you to the godswood.”

* * *

“That dress suits you,” her father whispers to her as he holds out his arm.

Brienne rolls her eyes, “I don’t think _any_ dress will ever suit me, but thank you.”

“I don’t know the Northern customs,” he leans in, “so I’ll just keep walking until you stop.”

“It’s briefer,” Brienne explains, “Sansa told me. Just answer the questions when asked.”

The godswood in the Red Keep isn’t like the one at Winterfell. The heart tree is a great oak and, like many trees in the godswoods of the south, has no face carved into the tree. The godswood at Winterfell was steeped in the power of the old gods; even a Southerner like Brienne could _feel_ it--thousands of years of untouched growth.

It’s night, as is custom. She can hear the water rushing from the Blackwater Rush. Lanterns have been placed on the ground to light the way. _A nice place to wed._ Mostly, though, it’s nice to be walking toward a person she wants to be with.

“Your bridegroom looks a touch nervous,” her father says when they’re a bit closer. 

Jaime is standing under the heart tree with Sansa beside him. Sansa, usually so reserved, is smiling quite openly. Brienne isn’t surprised that Jaime looks anxious. She’s certain it has little to do with her, but he’s tapping his left hand against his leg. if he had two hands, he’d be wringing them together. Sansa puts her hand on his arm, still smiling, and they share a glance. 

“He does,” she agrees.

“And you, daughter?”

“One of the pair of us has to be calm.”

When they arrive below the bower of leaves, Sansa, now outright grinning, clears her throat and says, “Who comes before the old gods this day?”

“Brienne, of the House Tarth, comes here to be wed. A woman grown, trueborn and noble. She comes to beg the blessing of the gods. Who comes to claim her?”

“Jaime, of House Lannister, heir to nothing, yet somehow a king?” He pauses, and Brienne should’ve known that Jaime wouldn’t stick to any sort of custom. “Who gives her?”

Somewhere to her left, Brienne _swears_ she heard Arya chuckle, then whisper an _ow_ as Jon elbows her in the side. Then, he quickly stifles his own laugh into a cough.

Her father slips his arm from hers, “Her father, Selwyn, of House Tarth. Although I think my daughter gives herself.” 

“She certainly does,” Sansa agrees and looks to Brienne, “Lady Brienne, will you take this man?”

Sansa chose not to call her _ser,_ and Brienne will have to thank her for the choice later. Being a knight was her dream, but it’s good to be a lady today.

“I will,” she answers, steady and certain.

Jaime looks like he wants to come to her, but some sense of decorum holds his feet in place. Brienne’s father unclasps the cloak from around her shoulders. It’s too warm for it, and she’s glad of the reprieve. Although, she’ll be replacing it with another in a moment. She looks at the heraldry of Tarth on the back--no matter who she weds or where she goes, her home won’t leave her.

Brienne realizes at the same moment Jaime does that he won’t be able to fasten or unfasten his cloak without fumbling. _Who fastened it before he came here?_ She imagines it was Jon, and the image makes her smile.

“I can do it,” Brienne whispers as she reaches up to unfasten the cloak.

“Thank the gods,” Jaime whispers back, “I should’ve thought of that.”

She’s smiling when she puts the heavy crimson fabric around her shoulders and fastens the closure. _Too warm, again._ In a sept, Jaime would kiss her now. Brienne would like that, but they have time for it later.

Instead, they kneel on the bed of dragon’s breath beneath the oak. Brienne looks at the ground and all she can see is the carpet of red flowers. The red of the cloak, _her_ cloak, pools on the ground around them. Brienne reaches out and takes Jaime’s left hand in her right. When she glances to him, his head is bowed and only the golden waves of his hair are visible.

Jaime doesn’t pray to the Seven or the Old Gods, but she knows he’s thinking of gratitude.

Brienne doesn’t pray often, either, but today she thinks she will.

**Author's Note:**

> I would love, LOVE to know what everyone thinks of this! Come bother me on tumblr @kurikaesu-haru.


End file.
